Can't afford to eat healthy food...

sarahellenwhitney I think your first few words hit the nail on the head ‘I learned from my mother’ ..... education, education education. We aren’t teaching our children to cook and they’re learning nothing worthwhile in schools. I worked until after 6pm, so our dinner was something heated up that i prepared the night before, my son didn’t actually see me cook.

This lack of know how is limiting families who are already living hand to mouth. Yes a casserole would last a couple of days, but if they don’t know how to make it, it’s a none starter.

The number of people who cannot afford to eat a healthy diet are very few.

Let us concentrate of the multitude who can afford a healthy diet but choose not to. That is where the problem lies.

Yes Baggs with you on your post but would also add lack of exercise.

I have mixed feelings about food banks. If people are genuinely going hungry then I think it’s a wonderful thing to help out, BUT how many scrounges visit them? You only have to look at people trying to get something for nothing from things like the Grenfall disaster fund when they were in no way involved to make me sceptical ?

It's ipads/iphones/macbooks/xboxes Sky/Netflix plus takeaways and ready-meals VERSUS outdoor activities and fresh fruit and veg plus home-cooked made from scratch meals and everyone eating at the table and having proper conversation.

If people can't or don't learn how to cook from their parents, there is always YouTube. No excuses whatsoever. There are still 24 hours in a day just as there were tens of thousands of years ago. There are no excuses for not eating a healthy diet.

It is choice for many not poverty , and no use telling a young mother what your mother cooked during WW2.

May heaven protect these mothers from Mary Berry , Jamie Oliver @co.

Jamie Oliver tried changing school dinners, mothers went to the school playgrounds with bag of chips during lunch time.

Lifestyles have changed, 24 hour tv, play stations etc.

Calling people ‘pathetic’ is condemning in my view.

I do love a takeaway as I cook from scratch daily. DH is very judgmental over what goes into ready meals and is good for us but I feel that in my seventies I can eat some rubbish and does it matter. My basic cooking is soup - Swiss barley soup at the moment. We have very conservative grandchildren but they try something new every time they come but do have pizza and nuggets when I'm pushed.

Could be young mothers reading this thread find it amusing , and mutter ~ get a life . We have to accept much unhealthy eating is a choice. Some here are so patronising , sorry.

Thank goodness for the likes of anniebach and Spaniel on this forum. Many of the poor are working hard with long days, juggling childcare and just trying to keep their heads above water so don’t find the time or energy to stand chopping veg, etc. Organising fresh food takes time, needs to be bought more often, etc. Also, processed food is addictive because of its added sugar so it is a viscious cycle.

MamaCaz

I don't think you're talking about normal rented housing, more, emergency accommodation which has shared facilities, often on a landing between floors, or illegals living 10 to a room.
Anyone on benefits without a cooker would be provided with the means to buy one.
As for those you cite as having been 'put on' high standard tariffs...lol.
There is more info about changing energy tariffs and options than you could possibly shake a stick at, so there is no excuse.
People over 60 (depending on their DOB) receiving the guarantee element of pension credit, also receive a winter fuel payment each November of £200 for a single person and £350 for a couple which rises when over 75 or 80 (can't remember which)
They also receive £145 off their electricity bill each year.
No-one is poor in this country unless they squander money on Sky, Netflix, iPads and iPhones, takeaways, cigarettes and booze.

Education used to begin at home. Sadly, we are a few generations past that now. News items lately describe young people unable to tell the time on an analogue clock. In my experience as a primary teacher, they are also unable to understand money (because they rarely see it?), cannot use a knife and fork, have no manners and are increasingly not able to speak a coherent sentence or use the toilet independently when they start school. They can't tie their shoelaces or wash their hands either. All these life skills were assimilated at home simply by learning by example within a family. Nowadays, teachers are expected to make up this deficit as well as convincing children that reading, writing and arithmetic are important.

Many families are cash rich but time poor. They are so busy working to maintain a house, cars and holidays that they haven't the time to watch a child slowly and inexpertly chopping carrots. It's easier to put them in front of the TV or games console and put a ready meal in the microwave.

When children arrive at school hungry in the morning without having eaten since the previous evening, they are in no fit state to learn anything. Thank goodness for breakfast clubs and for the teachers who spend their own hard earned cash (we have families to feed and bills to pay too!) providing food, clothes and toothbrushes for the worst cases.

It's pointless for teachers to lecture pupils about healthy eating if their parents are ignorant. (The word 'ignorant' is often used as a throw away insult but simply means unaware, don't know.) Children are pretty much powerless. It's very sad but, as far as teaching about nutrition in school goes, we missed the boat years ago so if parents can't/won't reinforce what children learn at school by cooking healthy meals from scratch, it's a losing battle trying to educate their children about it.

MamaCaz No people are not given the means to buy a cooker. Councils can give emergency loans but they aren't automatically given and they don't have much money now.
And by 'illegals' I presume you mean people.

I have known of families where money is so tight that even energy on the meter is accounted for. And cooking from scratch can cost more in gas/electric than sticking a few things from frozen into the freezer and still having enough on the meter for a shower. I admit these cases are not the majority.

For a lot of people it's not just a case of being lazy either, more a case of if that's how you were raised and you're fine then it seems perfectly acceptable.

For others I know, where both parents work full-time, then pick up kids from childminders and don't get home until 6, cooking from scratch can take up valuable time spent with their kids, so again, it's easier to chuck a few frozen things in the oven. I think there's a lot of 'time-poor' people these days, and what they and their kids are eating isn't as much of a concern as getting some free time.

I do agree with the point that cheaper foods mean people with a bit more cash can eat more, which is what often leads to unhealthy eating. And I do think there needs to be more education around that. I work in a secondary school and frequently hear kids saying 'this is healthy though miss, says it's got real fruit in it' as they sit and eat sweets/drink fizzy pop. There's a lot of work to do around educating children about healthy diets, even how to make foods such as pizza healthier, they need to be taught how to make healthy versions of the food they like. I agree with a pp who said that food lessons need to be improved, in our school they do a lot of healthy eating lessons, and a lot of cooking lessons, but I rarely see them learning to make healthy dishes.

I'm with Rosina here. I worked clinics attached to schools/children's centres in a Northern town. I also worked with local authority and Barnardos Family Centres. It was commonplace for toddlers to be weaned onto bottles of highly sugared milky tea and Greggs pasties. Mum would bite the corner of the pastie and then let the bairn suck the contents. The Family Centres ran cooking and nutrition classes, but the effect never generalised to home. Frozen chips, pizzas and chicken nuggets were the staples. Yes, most of the families were on benefits, but the mothers nearly all smoked, thought it normal to drink cans of lager through the day and had Sky TV. I'm not talking about a minority either, it was the norm. I'm sorry, but that's not poverty, it is cultural! We are so keen to be seen as 'non-judgemental' that we fail to condemn the harm done to children.

Don’t forget jacket potatoe with beans or grated cheese and if you don’t want to cook it in the oven the microwave will cook it in 4 to 5 minutes. Omelettes are cheap, I like sardines in spring water on toast for lunch. You just have to look about Lidl is great for shopping on a budget.
My mum went through the war. Food then was very limited she taught me to cook and have followed a lot of her recipes

It is so easy to think when you have a little money, when you have absolutely none it’s not.

Well in my experience of poverty, our wits tended to be sharpened by having very little money, What has happened to society that we are excusing people for not budgeting, or living within their means? Being poor means it's OK to feed your kids crap?

It's very tough that some people are poor, but don't forget many writing here have experienced financial hardship too and the depression that can bring with it.

We are in danger of talking ourselves into believing there is a sector of society - 'the poor' that can be excused almost everything, because they have less, even though they live in a welfare state. There must be many, many of us who came from families who were poor but would not face the shame of living on benefits. (In the 50s when stigmas were attached to almost everything, people would do anything rather than admit to the 'shame' of poverty and 'handouts.' People were less enlightened, liberal and much more judgemental.) We hid behind the sofa when the rent-man called. Dad grew potatoes and carrots after his day in the factory and Mum shopped in the market and carried vegetables home. No car, no money for taxis. We ate meat and two veg. Staple fare even if it involved the cheapest cut of meat which my mother would slow-cook and make soup from the bones and left-overs.

It was a physically hard life then too. Loads of effort was involved, and scrimping and saving too.

No one wants a return to that and if life was fair we'd all have money in the bank. But it's not. The left wing tend to use "the poor as their war cry today, even though we have recognised for nearly a century that we have to try and make life fair for those with least. If a family gets £300 in benefits (for example - given above) every week then perhaps a nod towards nutrition isn't too much to ask?

We have to enquire why some people don't seem to get it and are rearing overweight kids. Don't we?

Or do we? Is to enquire and wonder to judge too?

Getting down, depressed and frustrated when you are struggling to make too little money go too far is so hard - and I do speak from experience, not from any patronising or superior attitude. If you gave children a jacket potato with some baked beans or cheese it would be healthier than a packet or take away, and surely anyone can manage to cook a potato. Most people have microwaves - they don't need to put on a main oven in order to cook so many different foods. Porage fills you up for hours and costs about 4p a serving, while cereals cost 25p. I've just spotted Sheilasue above and realised we are two minds with one thought!

You have saved me a post Day 6. I have noted that all the rented properties by me, with families, have cigarette ends piling up on the path. The same parents on their mobile phones completely ignoring their kids. My Dad gave up smoking in 1948, he was supplied them free whilst in the Navy, he did this to make sure we ate properly. We were poor, both parents worked although Mum part time but she still cooked from scratch, lots of leftovers.

I think one or two are choosing to see snobbery that's not there. I'm certainly not judging anyone for not knowing what to do with the likes of pearl barley! I know that's largely down to your upbringing, and I was 'lucky' enough to have a mother who was frequently extremely hard up so meals just had to be both cheap and from scratch - no alternative then.

But I do think there are some who just don't like the taste of 'proper' food, and won't eat it - certainly children who've only ever been given the likes of pizza, nuggets and chips. And that isn't necessarily down to lack of money at all - a dd had a friend who'd only eat that sort of stuff. Her parents weren't remotely poor, but since her mother didn't like cooking that was more or less all she'd ever been given.

There are so many cookery shows on TV - I can't say I watch them, but do any of them ever feature cheap, tasty meals that aren't hard or complicated to cook from scratch? And that don't involve one or two more expensive ingredients you have to go and buy specially, and hardly ever use again?

How about a MasterBudgetChef series? Would anybody watch it?

We can talk about it , make ourselves feel good but it won’t change a thing. I have never lived in a high rise flat, my daughters were able to play in a field near the house, when babies lay in their prams in the garden, walked to school, never took them to a burger bar,certaintly couldn’t afford take away meals. Never left them with child carers.

Things change with each generation.

It seems to me that families also spend inordinate amounts on bottled drinks of all kinds. Carbonated sugary drinks contribute hugely to the obesity trend. We are not exactly poor but all my family, including the grand kids drink tap water all the time (apart from special occasions and often even then), it is the only thing that will really quench a thirst and still costs hardly anything. If you wean yourself off sugary drinks, you´ll never want to go back to them. And I shudder to think how much keeping us all in bottled water for the recommended 2 liters a day would add to the family budget!

It’s a combination of laziness and lack of cooking skills and the poor kids suffer. Nothing wrong with the occasional bit of junk food but it’s sad to see kids being taught bad eating habits. Not sure they’ll live longer as we are told people will

When mine were little I worked full time and made time at the weekend to cook up shepherds pie, casseroles etc. To freeze for meals during the week. For the price of a few takeaways you can get an electric pressure cooker and cook cheaper cuts of meat, and all sorts in a fraction of the time, and electricity. The nearest I get to junk food is making sticky ribs and chicken wings, in 20 minutes in it, delicious with roasted veg or potatoe wedges, or salad, yummy.

I just want to comment that children ARE taught how to chop onions and other vegetables at school. I regularly help out at my DGS's primary school and part of the year 3 syllabus is to learn how to safely slice up (using the 'bridge' method) onions, carrots, mushrooms and other vegetables and herbs, stir fry them (over a single burner gas camping ring) and make themselves a vegetable wrap. The teacher insists that every pupil has one bite of the wrap then if they don't like it they can leave the rest. The most unpopular ingredient is mushroom! They also study healthy eating choices.