What do you think should be done about food poverty?

That sounds like a really good idea margaretm74. Would be good if those shops caught on.

If we grow anything in the garden it's usually misshapen. What about community vegetable gardens, children could learn about where food comes from and how to grow it. I know some schools do this already. The only trouble with free school dinners for all is that a lot won't need it, but perhaps that is the price to pay. But proper wholesome dinners, meat or veggie alternative, and vegetables, not rubbish.

As a child I had malnutrition at one stage and without free school meals that situation may well have continued. I think that nutritious school meals are only half the story; bring back cookery classes, teach budgeting skills and equip young people with basic lifeskills.

Very true grannyactivist. Bring back proper domestic science, for boys as well as girls.

Our village has a community orchard.

I agree with grannyactivist. Bring back domestic science for boys and girls. Not all kids are lucky enough to have parents who teach them domestic skills such as cooking, home management and budgeting.

Mum taught me, and DH taught our two sons. He made sure they left home knowing how to cook about 10 nutritious meals, and knew how to look after their money. As for cleaning - they always had to do their share anyway: they never had the example of it being 'women's work' as all four of us mucked in together to get it done. In fact I'm useless at cleaning. It was a family joke that I couldn't work the new vacuum cleaner. (Well, they bought it when I was overseas visiting my sister....)

Their wives are very happy about all this!! Actually, come to think about it, these skills help to keep their relationships on an even track.

Very true GA there are so many people who have no idea how to cook a nutritious and cheap meal from basic ingredients such as cheap cuts of meat, vegetables, pulses etc..

There again some people couldn't be bothered.

Community gardens, cooking classes and so on are all valuable in their own way but are also only tinkering with the problem. The problem is poverty i.e. not having enough money to buy the ingredients for frugal meals even if you know how to cook them and in spite, in some cases, of holding down two or more jobs. There is something dreadfully wrong in the twenty-first century with people working full-time who are still living below the poverty line. That something is a skewed system whereby the gap between the haves and have nots – never mind the have mores and the have nots – has increased geometrically over the last decade or so in the UK to the detriment of society in general as well as the individual trapped at the bottom of the pile.

That's my feeling entirely absent.

Yes, when it comes to the crunch, some people simply haven't enough for even the cheapest meals.

I've been in that position myself, and we had to sell the house. My husband lost his job, got 'blacked' by his last employer because he'd been a trade unionist (even though he had taken no action whatsoever against that boss) and couldn't therefore get another job. He didn't even know he was blacked at the time; he thought it was ageism. Meanwhile mortgage interest rates were going up, our lads were growing in size, appetite and needs, and my little clerical wage just wouldn't cover it. I guess we were the working poor. No unemployment benefit here if the spouse works.

We had a very frugal, car-less two years until we caught up, DH found work, and we were able to relax a little. But we were never able to get back on the housing ladder. We live in the Australian equivalent of a council house.

But our lads never went hungry ( though we sometimes did)

I do accept that there are some people without budgeting and cooking skills but even I, with an abundance of both and a seasonal supply of home grown veg and fruit would struggle to feed a family on the money available to claimants. If you allow yourself £1 per head for a main meal and 50p a head for breakfast and for light meal that comes to £56 per week for a family of 4. That does not include milk, bread, tea, fruit or the basic stuff like flour, gravy mix, mustard, jam, herbs and such like that better off or newly poor people have already in their larder. Nor does it include any sweets, cakes, biscuits or snacks, nor cleaning stuff, shampoo, toothpaste, toilet rolls and all the other stuff we buy in the supermarket.

The main meals would have to be spag bol, macaroni cheese, Spanish omelette, mince padded out with pulses or oatmeal, pie & beans etc. with soup before or pudding after - not both. Fresh fish? - no chance and 'cheap cuts of meat' . There is no cheap meat these days. Granted you can buy food at knockdown prices if you shop very late at night as we sometimes do but our nearest supermarket is 5 miles away and last bus is 9.00pm so not an option for many.

You would have to be very clever, motivated and self disciplined to manage to feed your family, week after week, on the budget available.

And don't get me started on the demands from the schools to take in money for something or another every single week.

During our bad time my youngest lad, about 8 years old, wanted some money for something or other his friends were doing. I didn't have it, and explained why. He thought about it for a while, and then told me that the system was all wrong, and money was all wrong: people should work at what they are good at, and in return get whatever they need.

I'll never forget that - the day my then 8 year old re-invented Marxism!!

Excellent post Granny23 I agree with every word.

Thank you Granny23

Yet for the cost of 20 cigarettes you could provide instead a nutritious meal for a family of four.

ttps://www.aldi.co.uk/en/product-range/fresh-bakery/this-weeks-latest-meat-offers/

They need to get to Aldi!

Truth is some are too lazy to cook and rely on ready meals and junk food.

I feel sorry for single people or couples on benefits. But people not working with children get plenty of help from the government, child benefit, tax credits, help with rent and council tax, free school meals, free breakfast clubs at some schools, 15 hours free childcare for over 3's.

In my opinion it's only the ones on benefits who can afford to have children, those working have to think twice before starting a family or having more children. The ones on benefits can just breed and be rewarded for it with more benefits given to them.

We will have to agree to differ on that one ninny. the number of hours worked in order to claim certain vital benefits is limited to 16 and there are not the benefits available that you seem to think. People can suddenly find themselves in this position through no fault of their own having decided to start their families when both married and in full time employment. Most are not too lazy to cook but when the key meter runs out it makes life difficult. Oh yes, you have to have an Aldi close by .

To be honest Aka I have not watched the programme because I knew it would be too distressing, so I assume lots of them were smokers. The people I know who claim benefits (sadly quite a few) don't smoke and are struggling. It is all being mismanaged and my belief is we at the pension/or near pension part of life are being fed misinformation as a 'vote winner'.

Yes, I watched the programme last week for the first time. It held no surprises - I've seen it all first hand, over and over again, when I worked in areas like these. When I gently pointed out to one mother that her daily 40 a day habit could instead provide her family with a proper meal, she pointed out they had free school meals anyway and said she needed 'some pleasure in her life'????
I do have to say that typically shops in run down areas didn't stock much choice in the way of fresh vegetables or fruit. There was a small general purpose store. Their stock was very limited but perhaps reflected demand. There was also a betting shop, an off licence, a chemist and a newsagents.

Oops really sorry I think I crossed threads here could have sworn I was on 'Benefits Street'

I would like to know for sure how much out of work families do get paid in benefits. I think the minimum is 15,000 a year. here it says benefits are capped at 500 a week for a couple regardless of the number of children.

It will be better for all when they get the Universal Benefits in place in all areas.

I think you mean universal credit, Jingle. Universal benefits are in now, like the bus pass for all pensioners, etc.
IDS has made a real mess of Universal Credit, and it cannot be rolled out until 2017, even though it was supposed to be in this year. He is throwing money at IT companies to try and get him out of the mess. Only one area, Tameside is on the system, and they are using spreadsheets to work out who is owed what.
There is no minimum income although various groups have advocated that. In fact it's a revolutionary idea throughout the world, espoused by many Green Parties. There is supposed to be a minimum income guarantee for pensioners.
I agree with you, Absent, the problem is poverty. Until that is addressed it is just tinkering at the edges of society, and blaming the poor for being poor whatever they spend their money on.
I remember reading somewhere that in 2008 when the banking crisis happened, in this country and America we gave the banks money, whereas in Australia, they gave money to the people to spend.
Does anyone in Australia know whether that helped your financial system or not?

this is what I mean. Call it what you like

Just what I said, universal credit. Nothing to do with what I call it.

Ok! Knickers. Twist.

I'm sick of the way society has gone. When we were young (I'm nearly 69) it wasn't a matter of whether you'd get a job, but which one you'd choose. And once in work the unions protected our pay and conditions. Most work was full time; you worked part time if you wanted to, not 'cos that was all you could get. Buying a house was affordable, and rent rates were subject to certain controls.

But something went wrong; manufacturing went overseas, work conditions deteriorated, unions started to be regarded as something satanic, the division between rich and poor widened, and jobs became so scarce that 100s of people often apply for one crappy job.

Benefits had to remain available to ward off starvation and homelessness, but somewhere along the line a new demographic arrived; people stuck permanently on benefits. Available jobs became too poorly paid to motivate such people to apply, so immigrants took them instead.

Here in Australia the Aborigines call benefits 'sit down money' and their elders are fighting to find jobs for all, and get the young off benefits, because social disintegration, alcoholism and drug use is destroying whole generations, whole communities, who feel they have no purpose.

I agree with those elders - the only answer is work for all. Even the most basic workplace; factories, warehouses, shops, tended to civilise people from even the worst backgrounds. Young teenagers fresh from school got a new framework to their lives, instead of just being cut loose.

We can whinge and carry on about who is to blame for poverty, why some people can't get enough to eat, why some people won't budget properly, why we need food banks.................there is no solution, nothing that will improve society, except decently paid and available jobs for all.