Eating plans for a £1 a day

The issue isn't to stave off starvation, though..
It is to budget on a very limited amount.
I suppose we could drink our own pee, if we had to - what a saving!

MrB has started doing our weekly shop fairly recently. I'm having to teach him how to choose vegetables one veg at a time. His go to way, for example, was picking up a bag of carrots so I had to write things like "choose four nice fresh carrots individually". He's getting there. We're onto leeks now. I don't think he's ever thought to actually inspect the food he's buying, which I think is important with fresh stuff especially.

Mollygo

Daddima
You’d think he would know that tomatoes ‘on the vine’ were more expensive.
Salmon paste with only around 9 grams of protein-hmm.
My biggest concern about that lovely bit of ‘look what I can do’ vs is that the bodily energy + car fuel energy + cooking expended in making that video far outweighed the nutritional value of the meals.
But at least he’s keeping his mind active.

I looked at the comments under the video. Apparently, the 'on the vine tomatoes' were the only ones available separately.

He also cheated a bit. I don't think people could go into Costa and McDonalds every day and scrounge things, nor could they go for a walk to forage.

MissAdventure

The issue isn't to stave off starvation, though..
It is to budget on a very limited amount.
I suppose we could drink our own pee, if we had to - what a saving!

Isn't budgetting on a very limited amount the same as eating to stave off starvation? I don't even eat a lot but I reckon I'd be close to starving on a pound a day.

Also, MissAd, I was talking metaphorically.!!

I wouldn't buy on the vine tomatoes if they were the only ones available.

Why? I've generally found those the tastiest.

Because I'm on a tight budget.

Oh, I see.

I would be more likely to buy some basic value peppers or something, instead, on the premise that food needs to be colourful to fulfill our nutritional needs.

I couldn't eat all the bread the man in the video ate. He found it in the reduced section anyway. If it hadn't been reduced, he couldn't have prepared the meals he did.

I'm due to go into hospital for my cancer op in the next week or so, so I'm reluctant to change my eating habits at the moment, but I'm definitely up for seeing if I could eat for a £1 a day. I'm not that optimistic, but I'll have a look through Jack Monroe's recipes and see if I could manage it.

She'd be a better bet, I think, because she has tried and tested the recipes over time.

Journalists are just playing at it.

I was actually interested in whether the posters who agree that people who need food banks because they can't cook or budget, could give concrete examples of how they could eat for 30p a meal.

A kind of "put t your money where your mouth is" type thing.
I'd be very interested to hear some good advice on how it's done, too.

Some years' ago Jack Monroe used to have a food column in The Guardian - I have to say that her portions were tiny.

From what I can see she is very slight and at the time she was cooking for herself and her young son.

I'm not sure that such advice, as well-meaning as it might be, is helpful to those on a very tight budget. In fact it perpetuates the myth that all you need to do is have 10 ways with lentils and dried beans.

I think her ideas were put into motion when she needed to manage on very little for a limited amount of time, too.
It was never meant as a lifestyle manual.

Even though someone was advising people to read the book (or write one) in between saying how they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

I think to be able to produce a range of tasty but cheap meals you need to already have a cupboard well stocked with lots of basics. Seasonings, oil, vinegar, flour, tomato purée etc cost a bit if you are having to buy them all at once. Also you might not have a toaster or a slow cooker which is wonderful for cooking many things economically including the cheapest cuts of meat. Many people struggling to make ends meet don’t have these things.

I do love my slow cooker.
I just shove everything in and hope for the best, and it's usually ok.

Callistemon21 I agree with this.

If all children got a good, nutritionally balanced school dinner either free or subsidised then that would solve a lot of problems.
Although our school dinners aren’t junk food, I’m still not convinced about school dinners or that “good” and “nutritionally balanced mean the same.
If the (primary) children ate what they were offered on the menu, I could just about accept ‘nutritionally balanced’. Many don’t. They simply leave bits that they don’t want to eat, often the veg or salad or fruit. Also, some schools declare the week’s meals to be ‘nutritionally balanced’ which means children need to eat a whole week of the meals to get the balance.

My slow cooker is a miracle worker MissA. A much better cook than its owner! Ditto the soup maker.

Another thought crossed my mind. I'm trying to think ahead and stock up for the time after my op. I don't know how I'm going to feel, but I know I won't be able to drive. I usually live on my own (apart from visits from partner), so I might not feel up to cooking. I've been doing my Tesco order and have ordered individual ready meals (microwave meals) and stuff I know I can prepare easily, but I've gone way over my budget. I have some savings, so I'll be OK, but what about the people who are really living on the breadline and get ill?

MissAdventure

I do love my slow cooker.
I just shove everything in and hope for the best, and it's usually ok.

I like mine too although I need to be a bit more adventurous with it.

I agree with you Mollygo. Gone are the days when dinner ladies made everybody eat the stuff on their plates. School dinners stop children feeling hungry, but they're not always that well balanced.

My grandson gets half an hour for lunch at school.
The younger children go first, so by the time my boy has his turn all that is left is a bacon roll or pizza, and about 10 mins to eat it.

You certainly have a point there growstuff. Very best wishes for a good outcome from your op.?