Too poor to eat properly

Hi my final comment is that foodbanks give out basic recipes on how to use the food given out to last three days. What they supply are more menus. There is always pasta rice and tinned potatoes corned beef etc. They suggest cooking pasta adding it to tinned soup etc. As someone said earlier some families have no access to cooker so there is a kettle pack or vcold pack. We also hand out a list of where people can get free food. There is a lovely lady from housing that helps get rehoused.

Like notanan2 I keep an extensive store cupboard as did my mum. My best friend (same age) doesn’t !!...consequence being she can only cook what she buys on a daily basis . It’s odd how people brought up in same generation could be so unlike in batters of cooking . I too have always homemade soup ‘on the go’ and use what’s to hand. Youngsters don’t seem to ‘cook’ anymore. My 11 year old grandson is doing ‘food tech’ at school but all he’s learning is pizza’s ...pasta’s...cakes...brownies... nothing substantial. I feel for them all because they are going to be at the mercy of the food giants filling them with salt..sugar... and unnecessary fats.

So, do all food banks offer cookery classes?
If not, maybe some of the people who cook from scratch could ask about the possibility of setting up some sessions?

I used to be the coordinator for the local food bank. The reality is that by the time people visit us they have run out of all resources. They have paid rent gas electric and have nothing left often because they are on thes zero hours contracts or they are waiting for six weeks for benefits to kick in. The good thing about the food bank is that a lot more than food is supplied. There are cleaning materials toiletries nappies baby milk pet food sanitary towels and also a pack of basic food items that lasts three days but can stretch further. There are often a soup pack as well stock cubes lentils etc. I used to put vegetarian items in as well as they really stretch the contents things like chickpeas beans etc can make a good curry . Unfortunately there is no fresh fruit and veg only tinned sometimes bread . But this is limited to three or four weeks. It is not a permanent solution. Thank goodness for schools providing breakfasts. We never turn anyone away. I take the point about learning to cook. Often friends pool resources if someone has credit in there gas they will cook there. There are also kettle packs or cold packs for those wouthout recourse to a cooker
There are also cooking classes for those interested. Now the people attending food banks have complex problems and the food bank zI was involved is now a hub with housing support mental health and other agencies.

I think lack of proper cooking facilities - or money for gas/electricity - can be a major factor, especially if people have those pre-pay jobs, which I believe work out considerably more expensive than paying normally. Which IMO is a scandal anyway.

Having said that, I know from previous exceedingly-broke years (a long time ago now thank goodness) that it is possible to eat well enough very cheaply - if you know how to use cheap ingredients - seasonal veg, lentils, pearl barley etc. - and have the wherewithal to cook them.

I was lucky in having a very frugally-minded mother (often a necessity) in an era when cheap junk food simply wasn't available. Many nowadays just don't have that background to help them.

For quite a while dh and I virtually lived on thick vegetable soups, with the cheapest processed cheese on the side, for protein. Might add that dh still loves 'dustbin soups' as my mother called them, i.e. made with whatever she had. I still make them a lot in winter.

But I must admit that I do get very cross when people imply that healthy food always has to include things like fresh salmon, chicken breasts and blueberries.

Although not a quick solution I really believe that cookery classes for both boys & girls should be re-instated in schools & I KNOW how stretched they are already.
Basic knowledge of how to make cheap, nourishing meals is essential. Even if not at home then when they go to Uni or whatever in their late teens.
I teach all my GC to cook & they enjoy it. My 14 year old GS is very adventurous & will have a go at anything. I sold it to him in the beginning that when he goes to Uni he will be a wow with the girls if he can cook.

Nobody knows about growing things until they learn, and besides, in my scheme they would have advice and guidance from the garden owner.

This thread and its replies just shows what a mess our country is in. We all got a proper school dinner, and for the poorer children, it was free. Girls learned cookery from their mothers and were also taught cookery at school. We were taught to knit and sew. What exactly are children learning these days? Perhaps there needs to be less concern about gender and more emphasis on learning life skills, because we appear to have a generation of dependent snowflakes who have lost the ability to do anything for themselves.

Didn't Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall start a scheme like that.

These schemes sound good - and I am sure there will be takers, but many of the poorest are working very long hours and live in inner cities. The houses with large gardens needing help are many miles away. Those who would most benefit from this may well know nothing about growing a pot plant let alone vegetables.

In my village, where there are many houses with large gardens, most of our allotments have been put down to grass because no one is interested in using them. This has been unaffected by the construction of over 300 new houses in the village in the last 5 years, most with tiny gardens and all of them being within a couple of hundred yards of the allotments, which are in the centre of the village

I just boil up a teatowel and make soup..

I’ve lived on next to no money, I’ve lived with no carpets, no running water, caravan etc. I worked my way out of it...but that is just background.
People say £1 for a microwave meal is cheap but if family of 3 or 4 that is £3 or £4. You can buy a 5kg bag of lentils for under £10, works out about 20p a portion, then add chickpeas, cheap veg. I also used to cater 3-course dinner for 14 regularly on a 2-hob camping stove. If you want meat, tinned toms, mince, some oxo cubes (cheap equivalent). Chuck in whatevers cheap, cook a big pan full, spag bol then chilli then curry. I lived so cheap, no phone, no TV, no heating, no car. You make do! I think a generation has believed there is this fictional pot of gold that the government have, that is theirs for the asking! You can also get free berries in hedgerows in season. And cans of veg when discounted. I was working 3 jobs to pay off debts and career change but still had time to shop and eat dirt cheap. I think our idea of poverty has also changed.

I would like to be the minister for community inclusiveness..
An older person could teach how to cook from scratch, even just sitting and giving instructions..
There is so much scope to do just so much good for everyone.
I'm tempted to sing "Imagine all the people.. living life in peace" now.

People I know were doing that - a local woman could not manage her very large garden and two couples took it over - the garden was kept in good order and they all enjoyed the produce.

I always think there should be some way of pairing up people.
Say, someone with a big garden who is struggling, with a family who could help out, grow some veg, and spend time doing outdoor, healthy stuff.
Its a win/win situation.
It would help with people who are isolated, too, to have contact.
Then they could cook what's been grown, and all enjoy a happy meal together.
I know that's really simplistic, when life isn't, but it would be so worthwhile.

No, they may well not have.
Gone are the days of building houses (council or private) with those long, thin gardens but which were all turned over to vegetables to eke out post-war rationing.

Do you think a lot of poor people have gardens?
I'm not saying they don't, but I've never had one, and I'm not the poorest person I know. Almost, but not quite.
I still do grow things in pots..

We had a lot of home-grown food.

People now say there is no time but DF worked long hours, travelled by bicycle to work and still managed to provide much of our fresh vegetables, fruit and flowers from the garden and his allotment.

I think perhaps there wasn't so many options of cheap, stodgy, filling food in the 'olden days'.
Its probably cheaper to buy a happy meal from MacDonalds than to make a casserole.

Sometimes we had pilchard salad just to vary it. Aunty in the IOM used to send us a box of kippers and some Manx butter.

A rabbit for 1/6 from the butchers for Sunday roast.
Looking back, we ate very well indeed in the '50's compared to present day.

When my daughter left school and we had both started new jobs, we had to work a month in hand.
She had to take bread and butter for her lunch because we had nothing to put in it.

Hungry children 'eating from school bins' in Morecambe

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-46827360

I took a tin of pilchards to put in the food bank box today, strangely enough.
Brain food!

Pilchards on toast would be quite nutritious - I was thinking that it is better than a cheap pizza!

We eat a lot of toast. Cheap and cheerful, and reasonably healthy.

Growing up I had pilchards on toast, beans on toast, tomatoes on toast, mushrooms on toast. Sardines on toast. Mince on toast. Meat paste sandwiches and mum used to go to the fish shop ( for fish pieces for the cat ) ahem, complete with large flakes for fish cakes with home-made chips. Then there were the stews.
Dripping on toast ( when there were decent cuts of beef )
We lived like Lords hahahaha. These were obviously before pay-day meals.

Imagine giving kids pilchards on toast !