Does anyone else feel like we’re living like a dystopian novel?

Doodledog

Also, if anyone reading would like a cheap meal, look out for FE colleges that run catering courses. They often have restaurants that sell meals cheaply so the students get to try out their skills. If you can find out when the final years are cooking, try to book then . That often means the service will be from first years, so might not be as polished as you'd like, but you get a full meal with silver service for little more than cost price. There was one near my workplace, and a group of us used to go every Christmas and through the year when diaries allowed.

That does seem to depend on the particular college concerned. Many years ago now - we're talking decades ago and back when I still lived in England - I was astonished to find that a management person that was leaving my employer invited us all out for a meal and lots of us went to the local College and a nice meal it was too. I didn't know that sort of thing existed. Defo worth going there.

I live in West Wales these days and there is a cookery course in the local nearby college and they have a restaurant too and I thought "Same idea must apply here then" and just popped through the door to take a peek at the menus I could see on display there. I still don't know why the heck someone who thought they were Somone started screeching the odds and refusing to let me see a menu and threw me out and other staff backed her! I was shocked - as all I wanted to do was to step about 2 steps inside the door, have a quick scan of the menu as to whether I wanted to go have a meal there/be a member of the public for them to try out their skills on. They just kept "screeching" and being very unwelcoming. I was very puzzled all round - but decided "If this is their attitude - whilst I'm just trying to politely explain what I'm doing = I don't wanna know anyway....".

I didn't know whether it was the fact that it was about 50 years after my first experience of a College restaurant and maybe things had changed since then - or it being a different part of the country. But I wasnt going to hang around to be screeched at for no reason.....

Our country needs to do something about malnutrition and also obesity before another generation grow up hooked on fast food, trans fats and sugar.
The NHS either won’t cope at all - or won’t exist - in 20 years’ time.

lafergar

Suppose it makes a change from the endless banging on about small boats.

How nice it is to be all smug about people who need these iniatives to cope.

Sounds good to me, happy for my tax to go towards it.

Someone just recently here commented that the majority of asylum seekers will have it granted and that is ok. Having your own poor folk fed - that is dystopia. People...honestly??

so it is ok a completely unknown foreign individual to you to have food, shelter, basic funds and all that given them daily, but a meal saving someone's poor Brit and their kids from malnutrition is communism.

You are the very ones who are coming up with these opinions. Wake up.

I think that if people go to one of the restaurants and get, say, a lentil flan or spiced potato pie which they enjoy, they might be encouraged to try making it at home, much as we all do when we try something new eating out.*

I think it might be a mistake to make them only for 'the poor' though. If there is any stigma attached to eating there it might put people off, and have connotations of free school meals. Maybe start the trials in areas of high deprivation so that those who live there benefit first, but roll them out to all areas a step at a time, so that people living in what used to be called 'genteel poverty' can use them, as well as students and others getting by on low incomes. If those who 'can afford' not to eat there use them, so much the better. Maybe the restaurants could accept tips/donations if it turns out that it is not a case of the larger the scale the cheaper the meals. Recipes could be displayed on a board so that people could take photos and try them at home.

* For info - Set the oven to medium/180 degrees or Gas 4. Line a flan tin with shortcrust pastry. Bake blind for about 15 mins, adding baking beans if you have them, or just prick the bottom of the pastry if not. Finely chop an onion and fry in some oil, then add 4 oz red lentils and 2 grated carrots. Mix well and add half a pint of well-flavoured stock made with a stock cube or pot, or concentrated vegetable water. You can add a teaspoon of Marmite and/or a tbsp of tomato puree if you have it. Cook until the lentils and carrots are soft, adding water if necessary. When ready beat in an egg to bind then spoon into the prepared tin and smooth. Bake for 20 mins or so, then arrange sliced tomatoes on top and sprinkle over grated cheese. Return to the oven for another 15-20 mins or until cheese is browned.

Leave to cool for 10 mins or so and eat with salad, coleslaw or a baked potato.

I fail to see how mum (maybe dad) and 3 children eating @ £3 a head = £15 (especially if in poverty with rats/high rent) are going to afford one dinner out at even these subsidised prices?

FriedGreenTomatoes2

I fail to see how mum (maybe dad) and 3 children eating @ £3 a head = £15 (especially if in poverty with rats/high rent) are going to afford one dinner out at even these subsidised prices?

Yes

There is the element of saving money on fuel cooking a meal and heating one's home to sit there and eat that meal that also comes into play.

Don't know how it would work if there was a variable pay-as-you-feel sliding scale - maybe with a minimum price and a maximum price that could be paid? Many years ago now I recall a place opened that had payment that way - and I was quite grateful at the time personally - as I've always been single and poorly-paid and it was certainly very rare indeed for me to eat out at that point. I'm still struggling to get my head round the way I can buy "my food" now - rather than having to buy the cheaper option so often as I did for literally decades.

I’m a realist, and the realities are, we are rearing a very unhealthy future workforce.
All the Jamie Oliver’s etc arnt going to change what has evolved with crap food being delivered at the tap of a button.
Perhaps it just might inspire people to cook.
One aspect that I do think will come out of this is the social aspect. We have a lot of lonely socially isolated people in this country. Perhaps it might help them to realise how nice it is to sit and eat with others.
Perhaps it might inspire them to cook and invite people over for a meal.
All according to how big the premises are you could have volunteer onsite to offer advice to people.
The possibilities are endless.

I think that there is a big difference between the, usually voluntary, canteens run by special interest groups, for local specific needs and the kind of chain cafes the government has in mind.

A local group runs a weekly lunch club in our village hall, using vegetables grown on their allotment, it is a social event as well as providing a selection of meals hot and cold for a donation price. These kind of groups are a world away from what the government has in mind. If they were to suggest funding local groups offering meals to meet local needs, it would be very different.

Cariad You say only 8% of people of 70 are healthy, I have read statistics like these, but never worked out what they mean by healthy. Many people of 70 are taking a statin, or possible a mild blood pressure pill but are actually very healthy doing everything they always did and devoid of any noticeable symptoms of anything that in anyway constrains their lives.

In fact 10 or 20 years ago they may well not have been taking any pills, not because the drugs were not available, but because the limit at which they were prescribed was higher than today. We will all soon be classified as unhealthy simply because the medical establishment keep lowering the point at which medication is issued.

Some years ago I was told I had kidney disease because some measurement fell below a level which had just been lowered. No symptoms, no medication, but annual monitoring. The next year the measurement was in the healthy level so all the monitoring stopped. I have no idea what it has happened since, but I could be classified as healthy merely because someone hasn't measured something recently.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

I fail to see how mum (maybe dad) and 3 children eating @ £3 a head = £15 (especially if in poverty with rats/high rent) are going to afford one dinner out at even these subsidised prices?

Exactly 👍🏻

FriedGreenTomatoes2

I fail to see how mum (maybe dad) and 3 children eating @ £3 a head = £15 (especially if in poverty with rats/high rent) are going to afford one dinner out at even these subsidised prices?

Agreed.

Norah

FriedGreenTomatoes2

I fail to see how mum (maybe dad) and 3 children eating @ £3 a head = £15 (especially if in poverty with rats/high rent) are going to afford one dinner out at even these subsidised prices?

Agreed.

It does not work like that. Mum comes with a pot, get it filled, pays for whatever and may be even not ( they will be having their food bank docs) and leaves.

I don’t think nitty gritty details have been decided upon yet Milsa unless you can quote your source? I believe it’s all vague and in the planning stages at present.

GrannyGravy13

I could say, but I would rather not be banned 🤬

😂😂😂

Doodledog

Also, if anyone reading would like a cheap meal, look out for FE colleges that run catering courses. They often have restaurants that sell meals cheaply so the students get to try out their skills. If you can find out when the final years are cooking, try to book then . That often means the service will be from first years, so might not be as polished as you'd like, but you get a full meal with silver service for little more than cost price. There was one near my workplace, and a group of us used to go every Christmas and through the year when diaries allowed.

Yes. Haircuts, manicures, followed by a lunch cooked by students.

Friends and I used to go sometimes years ago.

SueDonim

How is a government going to produce a healthy, locally sourced, organic meal for £3? When one looks at school meals and hospital food, I have no faith that it’s an achievable aim.

Cheap food always means someone else pays for it, be it your local farmer, immigrants who harvest it for a pittance or families in developing countries who’ve had their small holdings bought over by big business.

So much food goes to waste that is perfectly edible.

Community fridges, local churches etc give away food collected from supermarkets which is on date but still fine, or food donated by local gardeners, farmers etc.

Some volunteers collect this food and distribute it or cook it for community meals.

I'm not sure how widespread these initiatives are but it seems criminal when people are hungry yet so much food goes to waste.

CariadAgain I wasnt going to hang around to be screeched at for no reason.....

Best to check online or by phone first.

It's perhaps not a good idea to just wander in to a college where children (albeit 16/17 year olds) may be there on their own. It's a safeguarding issue.

lafergar

*The government's plan sound like glorified school dinners. Do adults really want school dinner*

Virtue Signalling Alert. Read no further if easily offended.

At the 2 centres I help out at, most families really enjoy the treat of a home cooked meal. One is run along the lines of a supper club. The tables are set nicely, we take orders and serve.
It is much loved and appreciated by all. Those seeking to up skill ,work in the kitchens, volunteers are able to get a reference and go on to work.
Parents get a much needed break and isolated people are not eating from their laps alone.

In the other setting people are asking for pot noodle and so on because they have no cooker.

I suspect both these examples are a world away from that which some inhabit.

A great initiative and I have heard of others. However, this is dependent on volunteers like yourself.

It's always been so and I wonder it it will ever change, despite this proposal.

Free school meals would be a better use of public money imo.

I’ll be interested to see what the meals @ £3 per head contain.
If they’re that good, MPs could trial them in the HoC instead of the menu here:

Members' Dining Room: Provides a variety of dishes, such as soup for £2.71, a prawn cocktail for £3.25, and a ribeye steak with chips and Béarnaise sauce for £9.19.

I don't think the O/P has the faintest idea of what communism actually really is. My parents were communists - and I do

and have also studied politics and economics at uni as we could take advantage of any lectures and seminars.

We havent has a true communist society, but these are the features:

No one, no one at all, owns any private property, nor owns any businesses, nor own any land.

All would be run by the state, which in theory is post a workers revolution.

People are paid not according to their abilities, but their needs.

All health and education and similar services are run by the state, no private opportunities at all.

All receive a state pension however much they have paid in, ie, again, according to need not savings and so on.

Of course, the societies called communist did not reach this theoretical communism, but there was certainly no private ownership whatsoever not private business.

I suggest we stop using the term communist unless it is accurate. its happened so many times I am fed up of repeating these facts so have been more blunt.

Everybody in even the not-really communist but called that had a job.

It was something of a levelling down, but no one had to face the shame of unemployment.

Despite all that went wrong, and the faults were overwhelmingly great, people did not fear old age as provision was decent, nor had to queue for benefits...

The most amusing and best film I recommend is from Germany, called "Goodbye Lenin".

The mum of a young man has suffered a stroke or similar and has been unconscious for some time.

During that time the Berlin Wall has fallen, but the Mum, a teacher, did believe in the idealised values of the old system, and as she is vulnerable, the son has to create a reality for her where it still exists.

Its a hoot, as they try to find food, put on old films and TV news, old friends to keep up a reality instead of whats really going on.

www.good-bye-lenin.de
"Goodbye Lenin" is worth a watch as it does actually explain the communist society before, and what happened after reunification.

SueDonim

How is a government going to produce a healthy, locally sourced, organic meal for £3? When one looks at school meals and hospital food, I have no faith that it’s an achievable aim.

Cheap food always means someone else pays for it, be it your local farmer, immigrants who harvest it for a pittance or families in developing countries who’ve had their small holdings bought over by big business.

Ask Lee Anderson. Apparently it's possible to produce a healthy meal for 30p.

Some people in need raid dumpsters and get food for free. Surprising what shops throw out at the end of the day. They used to give all the unsold bread away at the end of the day to people in need near here- not sure if they still do. Funny thing is it was often the really best most expensive stuff because no one would pay for it. I used to collect and distribute it once.

As MOnica says upthread there are "canteens"for specific needs and then there is this Government proposal. So different set-ups. Here is some food for thought....
In my neighbourhood, here in Canada, there is a Friendship Centre. It receives some Government funding which is blended with private donations of money and food.
The majority of people who drop in are in receipt of welfare payments and are living in poverty or are homeless.
There is a heavy reliance on volunteers who provide daily subsidised lunches for a dollar (about 55p) The actual cost of a meal is $5 (about £2.70). People can eaither pay directly or complete small chores after lunch instead.
Audrey, the cook who has worked there for 20 years+ and volunteers provide tea, coffee, snacks and fruit and a cooked nutritious lunch 7 days every week for 70 to 90 people. Audrey says having access to healthy meals is a blessing to people and has a ripple effect of impact...many people report they get sick less often and have started making healthier choices outside of the centre.