Too poor to eat properly

You are right, Riverwalk. Both my paid and voluntary work in the not so distant past have taken me into various foul 'houses of multiple occupation' rented out by greedy private landlords, illegally packing as many unfortunate human beings as possible into the space available. I remember well one unfit inner city Victorian house crawling with ants and cockroaches. Three filthy cookers were provided - in the basement only - and the worst bathroom you could possibly imagine was on the top floor. These 'facilities' served fourteen households.It takes time for councils to get around all such places and serve notices - and even longer to rehouse the occupants.

I met barely literate young people in such places who had left 'care' (and vulnerable older ones too, without friends or family). Both groups lacked basic knowledge of how to turn on an oven, let alone what the phrase 'cooking from scratch' meant. Much work has been done to try to improve matters over the past decade - but we need better housing, better basic education and many, many more good, properly funded projects to give people the help, skills and support they need.

When I left school I worked for the hols in a food factory producing quite well known pies, when they had packed enough of their own the label was changed (same pie no difference) for a well known supermarket. My SIL argued that the supermarket pies were better as she didn't like the other pies lol!!! I brought her two home same pie different label.

There are still proper school dinners, and free meals for children from families on benefit. A 'wise woman' on TV was saying that a bowl of cereal with milk costs about 25p, and a bowl of porridge costs 4p. There is no simple answer to this, but many people could improve the meals they do have by cooking a little more and buying a few less ready meals; cheap they may be but they are not as nutritionally sound. A woman was on the news saying that her son had to forage in bins on the way to school as he was 'starving' - I didn't know what to make of that as she was at least four stone overweight. Did she eat so poorly that it caused obesity? It really is a sad and awful problem that children have poor food, or not enough. I knew a child who had a disgusting 'sausage roll' every day for his lunch, greasy pastry and a strip of thin grey filling that bore no resemblance to sausage. Another child made her own lunch (she was about seven) which consisted of a slice of white bread with a dab of margarine, and a bag of crisps. How they could thrive, and learn, I really don't know.

Nonnie .There are those producing 'consumables' that will be sold in outlets using the 'outlets' own packaging.

Newnanny your post reminded me of MPs, and suchlike, who live the hard life for a short time to show how easy it is to live on benefits.

Of course anyone can live for a week or a month on a £1/day but I bet you and your colleagues did your experiment from the comfort of your warm home with all mod cons and utilities.

Like every other 'cook from scratch' saint on here I too can make a meal out of nothing, but have a stock of basics, herbs & spices, a fully-functioning kitchen and the absolute comfort of knowing that I don't really have to do it.

Funny sometimes what we get taught in school. In the late 60’s I was taught Domestic Science. Very useful. In maths I struggled to learn SINE and COSINE with the help of a little book. Never understood what it was all about and never used it in all my life after leaving.

Anja

Neither of us eat fish anyway. So, a bit of a moot point really.

That’s you told MissA ???

I didn't have enough money to buy a tin of sardines.
My point was that all we had in the house was bread and butter.
We both had to work a month in hand, find fares to work, so there was no money spare. None at all.

UC is paid (when you finally get it) calendar monthly so say the 8th of every month. Their blurb says it is to prepare you for when you go to work and to learn to budget. My son, who has a life limiting disease, was changed to UC from ESA when he finally got a council flat although he will never be able to work. He went from ESA every two weeks with DLA on one of the middle weeks to calendar monthly so he found it almost impossible to budget especially after the waiting time for the UC to start. I am sure people lose money on the changeover. His flat he pays £450 a month for plus a contribution towards council tax. It is all electric with a wall heater in living room and bedroom. He has no facilities for drying clothes so a tumble drier is necessary. In the winter he is feeding the electric meter with up to £50per week. People on benefits are not allowed to have electricity meters connected to bank accounts so are paying far too much for electricity. So you can imagine there isn't a lot left for food. I do an internet shop at Iceland for him fortnightly and it's hard work to find him nutritious food to fit the money available. I am usually subsidising the food bill and he is lucky I can do this. Many people dont have this help available or the knowledge to shop wisely.

MissAdventure Butter has never been cheap and you were lucky to get it during rationing. A far more nutritious, and cheaper than butter, would have been to buy a tin of sardines either in oil or tomato sauce, mashed down to make sandwiches for your daughter. Tinned sardines were around when I was a child during rationing. Money meant nothing if what you wanted to buy wasn't obtainable.

Gma29 thank you fir reading my post and understanding my point. Actually I was talking about some of the ‘sink estates’ I worked with in the north west eg Litherland and Bootle.

But you’ve made me think. There’s a new, very middle class, housing estate just gone up not far from me, about a mile away and further out of town. There’s exactky the same kind of mini supermarket I mentioned, a Chinese, a coffee shop, a chemist and an estate agent office. So no betting shop or off licence.

On this estate there are pockets of ‘affordable housing’ as part of the planning application being granted but I think 20 years on, this problem will still exists for those living in the cheaper homes.

On threads like this, as on the thread about homelessness, you’ll always get the odd (hopefully) poster who will know someone who knew someone who cheated the system.

This will be held up as an example of how Food Banks or giving charity to those on the streets, is A Very Bad Thing To Do, because they are cheats and liars and abusing the system.

These posters often hold very right-wing views and condemn those who think otherwise as ‘liberal lefties’.

Just saying......

New housing can be as bad for no shops and not much transport, they assume car ownership. Yes, it’s possible to walk, but not always with heavy shopping and a toddler.

Of course it’s easy and healthy to eke out meals using plenty of vegetables. Unless you go for the exotic or out of season vegetables are very cheap too.

But, I once sat in an Obesity Forum, and what became clear was that many of those living on these depressed estates are more likely to have an off licence and a betting shop nearby than one offering a decent range of fresh vegetables.

The most that was on offer were mini supermarkets with a few carrots, onions and potatoes. Not even a good range of frozen veg. as their small freezers tended to stock pizzas, ice cream, and other processed foods instead.

We ran cookery classes for parents and children that were well attended, but this lack of fresh ingreduents was constantly thrown up as the main problem. A mum at home with a pre-school child or children, others to drop off at school and pick up, and without a car, will have to rely on public transport. This means there is a limit to how much she can carry back on a bus and cope with a child(ren)

One way we tackled this was to organise a twice weekly delivery from eg Tesco.com where several people got together and put in a large order to be delivered to one of their houses. It took much organisational skills putting the orders together, divying up the food and the cost, etc.

It’s ok to point out that people can eat cheap healthy meals but they need better access to a reliable supply

School holidays can be a real financial burden, as the breakfast clubs and free school meals aren’t there to help. If you’re managing on a shoe string it doesn’t take much to really cause hardship, because you have no money for emergencies.

What is the definition of poverty? Is it not having enough food to eat or not being able to own a mobile phone or go on holiday. I often think about the nurse who was in the audience of a debate, who said she had to use foodbanks but actually had a car and could go on nice holidays!
My neighbour turned 60 a couple of years ago and instead of having gifts he asked for cash. He used this money to buy food to take to a food bank. As he was htaking in his donations a young lady came in, with (what he called) a fancy pushchair and talking on her phone. She stopped talking on her phone while she handed over a piece of paper to one of the volunteers and said she was meeting a friend and would be back in a couple of hours. My neighbour saw that the piece of paper was actually a shopping list. He said to one of the volunteers that he thought people would get a staple box of food and was told no, they tried to give them what they asked for! To be fair, I said there wasn’t much point giving them something they wouldn’t use. He then said that as he was driving home he saw her and another woman heading into a coffee shop! Is she in poverty because she can afford to visit a coffee shop? I couldn’t when my children were young, but I didn’t think I was in poverty! I could also feed my family on less than a 1/2pound of mince and a chicken fed 6 of us for 2 days, as well as making the stock for a pot of soup. When we got married we had a small black and white tv, that only had one channel that worked, so you had to retune it every time we wanted to watch a different channel!
Perhaps what was the norm for many in my generation is poverty for this generation!
Back to my neighbour, he has said he will never give to a foodbank again! I suspect that he has told a significant number of others about his experience as well.

In the '50's I remember it costing 1 old penny in the gas meter and a shilling in the electric meter.

I think It would be a start if people could accept that its not only lazy people who know poverty.
Often its those who are trying very hard to make a living..
Doesn't seem very likely that will happen anytime soon, it seems, sadly.

Sounds as if God forbid we might be going back to the really old days when women had many children, most of whom died at birth or later from malnourishment or various childhood diseases.
Very depressing, what can we do?

Actually, her workplace did provide proof, which the dwp lost.
So, she has her workplace angry at all the extra admin they're having to do, couldn't pay a parking fine, which built up to a ridiculous amount, found her car had been clamped due to the debt.. and so on.
She has two little children too..

That has happened to someone I know, who, incidentally works 45 hours a week.
Because there is a mix up due to her workplace not providing proof, everything has been stopped and it has been assumed that until proved otherwise, she owes rent, council tax, payment to the nursery going back years.
She has been living on 34 pounds a week since last October.

You cant cook anything from scratch if you have no money coming in,
I am sure people just dont believe that many are actually left without money altogether,
It really annoys me when people start going on about parents cant afford to feed their children or themselves
This UC is a cruel benefit, one of my sons gets all his food from a food bank, and has had no money since November
There has been some mix up with UC and ESA both say the other one has paid him, its disgusting he hasnt even been offered an emergency payment
I have also been helping him out with money for his gas and electric meters
The trouble is its 6 benefits in one, so if you dont get paid for one thing you lose it all

I don't see that as much of a challenge, but its good that a food bank benefited.
Ongoing poverty is a challenge, with or without addiction and other issues.