Tory MP blames food bank use on people not knowing how to cook or budge

I think he has a point in that people do need to learn to cook rather than relying on cheap ready meals lacking in nutrition. Beans, chickpeas, lentils, tinned tomatoes, potatoes etc are all fairly cheap but unless you know what to do with them that is not helpful. Food banks would be an excellent way of helping people learn how to make ingredients go further.

I do however think that he has no idea of living on the poverty line and probably not the best person to give out advice based kn his earnings and expenses claimed. Food and alcohol are also subsidised in the commons, why? This is not necessary and the cost could go towards universal credit or food banks

Jack Monroe would be far better placed to hell with advice as she has gone through this herself. Why not give out free copies of her books to people that need help.

I have been going through an old blog of mine from way back, that didnt produce a days meals for 30p or close, the best I could manage back then was around 80p for two meals in a day, I just priced that up at todays prices and wow not even those meagre meals are doable right now at that price!

Our meal last night was a mug of own brand bisto gravy each and a couple slices bread

Was all we had at the time that could actually constitute something to eat, we've already tried eating sandwich pickle neat from a jar, not recommended although it likely counts as part of the five a day!

Cos the first thing I did when my income disappeared was to rush out and buy the biggest telly I could and the poshest smartphone!

at the Foodbank I volunteer at we have standard bagged up food for a family or single person; the usual pasta, tinned meat,fish,rice,beans etc., enough to provide a reasonable meal for three days or so, but we also give people the dignity and self respect of choosing food from the extra section; toiletries, sanitary products, biscuits, etc., and at the main branch there is always a load of fresh bread, fruit, veg which is added as people wish. All because people are hard up, it doesn't mean they have to take what they are given, choosing your own bits and pieces at least has the semblance of normal shopping.

OakDryad

Love this tweeted thread from Jack.

All the white wingers saying cooking on a budget is easy, let’s see it. I want your shopping list & 7 day meal plans, to include all 3 meals drink & snacks. Has to meet 5 a day fruit & veg, daily vitamin RDAs, protein targets & fibre. Off you pop, I could do with the competition.

Also no specialist equipment, no dipping into your store cupboards, nothing that uses the oven or more than 20 minutes cooking time, and all ingredients must be available at the Big Four supermarkets. Let’s be having you, come on and put your menus where your mouths are.

And no shopping at multiple shops, and no yellow stickers, and no using any of my recipes. If a single one of you can do this by the end of the day and meet ALL of the above requirements, I’ll donate £500 to the Trussell Trust.

^£20 for 2 adults for 7 days (21 meals). Must show all ingredients and all their quantities for all the recipes and meals in the meal plan. I’ll be doing the nutrition calcs and checking your maths. Good luck!^

Nobody here has risen to the challenge, interestingly.
Not the chefs, the scratch cooks, those who learned at their mothers' knee and passed it on to their children.

Pammie1

Skydancer

In the 70s when my children were small we had little money. I bought vegetables and made vegetarian dishes. I learned how to make cheap nutritious meals from scratch. If we couldn’t afford something we did without. Show me a “poor” family who haven’t got a mobile phone each. I don’t consider myself right wing but it’s sadly true that a lot of people haven’t a clue how to budget or cook.

The notion of the ‘undeserving poor’ is alive and well isn’t it ? A mobile phone is pretty much a necessity these days rather than a luxury and with the offers on contracts and pay as you go, are probably cheaper than a landline these days. It’s a myth that poverty is the fault of the poor. How on earth are you supposed to make ends meet on a zero hours contract that pays minimum wage ? Rents are sky high and buying your own home is out of the reach of many these days. Benefits are means tested to the bone and so complicated that people often lose out because they don’t know their way around the system. The gap between rich and poor is widening all the time, but as usual, it’s all the fault of the poor, and if you could just learn to cook and budget all would be fine. What a load of codswallop !!

we have two mobile phones between 4 of us, needed to do online banking, a way of employers contacting us for the odd not the same every day let alone week shifts that they want doing, contact with family, and from what I was told when I was signing on, lack of a smartphone to access the gov site would mean a sanction! Oh and just maybe those people bought those phones cheap, at a time when they were actually earning enough to have a bit spare form living costs...

Gosh, JdotJ, that's not my experience at the foodbank where I volunteer. Our parcels are made up already, so no one chooses anything. There's sometimes a little trading amongst the clients "I'll swap you my tinned pears for your rice pudding " kind of thing, but they hand back anything they don't need/like to be recycled. I've not seen many fancy nails, either, or spray tans , although one of my fellow volunteers sometimes has blue or green nail polish, thanks to her enthusiastic granddaughter !

Love this tweeted thread from Jack.

All the white wingers saying cooking on a budget is easy, let’s see it. I want your shopping list & 7 day meal plans, to include all 3 meals drink & snacks. Has to meet 5 a day fruit & veg, daily vitamin RDAs, protein targets & fibre. Off you pop, I could do with the competition.

Also no specialist equipment, no dipping into your store cupboards, nothing that uses the oven or more than 20 minutes cooking time, and all ingredients must be available at the Big Four supermarkets. Let’s be having you, come on and put your menus where your mouths are.

And no shopping at multiple shops, and no yellow stickers, and no using any of my recipes. If a single one of you can do this by the end of the day and meet ALL of the above requirements, I’ll donate £500 to the Trussell Trust.

£20 for 2 adults for 7 days (21 meals). Must show all ingredients and all their quantities for all the recipes and meals in the meal plan. I’ll be doing the nutrition calcs and checking your maths. Good luck!

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct38mm

Perhaps he should listen to this episode of The Food Chain entitled 'Food Poverty in a Rich Country'. One of the contributors describes living in food poverty whilst working full time for the National Health Service.
It's tragic that those who claim to represent constituents are so woefully ill informed.

Do they teach cooking and budgeting at Eton? Or is it only the people who go to bog standard comprehensives who are expected to learn that sort of thing?

JdotJ

As a volunteer at a foodbank for 3 years now, I see both sides of the argument.
I do think more should be taught in schools with regards to budgeting, cooking, general household living, including decorating and basic electrics.

A lot of people who come to Foodbank are immensely grateful to be given the goods but I do also see people arrive who, yes, do have mobile phones (but they are a necessity as client has to ring for a foodbank voucher /job application) but also (in no particular order) have a large family, expensive car, spray tan, bladed eyebrows, Shellac nails, top of the range pram for baby, ring for a taxi to take them home as they 'won't get the bus'.
Others will only accept 'branded' food, i.e only PG Tips. If other tea bags are all we have on offer they say no. Only Basmati rice is wanted, any other kind, it's a No. Only certain cereals, etc.

Anyone who disagrees with what I have written, perhaps you too should volunteer/find out more about how a food bank works and what is on offer, for free.
Clients even get coffee and cake whilst they wait for their orders.

Now we're getting suggestions that the schools should teach decorating and basic electrics. ??‍♀️

Do people actually order things at Foodbanks? That's not at all how I thought they worked....

Milk is far cheaper to buy in bigger quantities, but then you risk it going off if you're a single person.
You can freeze it, but then need to weigh up if your freezer would be better to contain main meal items.

Lucca

Schools should do this schools should do that, the government tells schools what to teach !

Yes - it would take an overhaul of the system to make it work, but it might help to ‘level up’ in a small way. I suppose it depends whether we see education in terms of preparation for jobs or for life.

I could probably feed a toddler a nutritious diet on £1 for a day

No, I couldn't. One pint of whole milk is about 60p.

Was it Nadine Dorries who mentioned arrogant Tory posh boys who didn't know the price of a pint of milk?
Oh dear, I had to look it up!

As a volunteer at a foodbank for 3 years now, I see both sides of the argument.
I do think more should be taught in schools with regards to budgeting, cooking, general household living, including decorating and basic electrics.

A lot of people who come to Foodbank are immensely grateful to be given the goods but I do also see people arrive who, yes, do have mobile phones (but they are a necessity as client has to ring for a foodbank voucher /job application) but also (in no particular order) have a large family, expensive car, spray tan, bladed eyebrows, Shellac nails, top of the range pram for baby, ring for a taxi to take them home as they 'won't get the bus'.
Others will only accept 'branded' food, i.e only PG Tips. If other tea bags are all we have on offer they say no. Only Basmati rice is wanted, any other kind, it's a No. Only certain cereals, etc.

Anyone who disagrees with what I have written, perhaps you too should volunteer/find out more about how a food bank works and what is on offer, for free.
Clients even get coffee and cake whilst they wait for their orders.

Doodledog Fri 13-May-22 12:28:42

Yes.
Cooking anything to make it reasonably palatable requires condiments, herbs, possibly oil, stock cubes (making stock means having a chicken carcase or other leftovers to start with and requires long simmering using gas or electric).
Mayonnaise, ketchup, brown sauce, soy sauce?

I could probably feed a toddler a nutritious diet on £1 for a day but it would require an outlay of larger packs of meat, fish, vegetables, fruit to be able to do that.

Most foods aren't packed in single adult portion sizes on the supermarket shelves either.

He's just another Tory trying to defend their appalling attitude to those in poverty and blame the poor for their alleged ineptitude. But what can you expect from Johnson's Tories?

Schools should do this schools should do that, the government tells schools what to teach !

That's why decent people, who do care (aka everyone else) need to support the vulnerable, nurture the young, look after those who need it - whatever the reasons.

Doodledog

Agreed. Going to Costco to buy in bulk can save a fortune, for instance, but requires an outlay in the first place.

I'm beginning to wish I hadn't posted on this thread, as this topic brings out the worst in people who make assumptions and judge others, whatever they are saying. It seems like people start out thinking that there is one solution, and anyone who suggests a different one is either over-privileged, a rampant Tory, a loony leftie or doesn't live in whatever their version of 'the real world' happens to be.

I don't think anyone could make a balanced map for 30p, whether they are skint or relatively comfortable, but if they are starting with a full pantry and the gadgets to help them they will have a better chance of making one more cheaply than someone without. Regardless of that, as long as people are expected to work for less than it takes to pay high rents and fuel bills there will be food poverty, and it is a disgrace in a country as rich as the UK.

You’re talking good sense Doodledog, ignore the naysayers.

Skydancer

In the 70s when my children were small we had little money. I bought vegetables and made vegetarian dishes. I learned how to make cheap nutritious meals from scratch. If we couldn’t afford something we did without. Show me a “poor” family who haven’t got a mobile phone each. I don’t consider myself right wing but it’s sadly true that a lot of people haven’t a clue how to budget or cook.

The notion of the ‘undeserving poor’ is alive and well isn’t it ? A mobile phone is pretty much a necessity these days rather than a luxury and with the offers on contracts and pay as you go, are probably cheaper than a landline these days. It’s a myth that poverty is the fault of the poor. How on earth are you supposed to make ends meet on a zero hours contract that pays minimum wage ? Rents are sky high and buying your own home is out of the reach of many these days. Benefits are means tested to the bone and so complicated that people often lose out because they don’t know their way around the system. The gap between rich and poor is widening all the time, but as usual, it’s all the fault of the poor, and if you could just learn to cook and budget all would be fine. What a load of codswallop !!

I think "They don't care" sums this government up completely MissAdventure.

The greedy f*****s don't have a clue about anything except making sure they and theirs are ok.
They don't care.
That's the short and long of it.

The gap between richer and average is widening and the gap between average and poverty is narrowing.

That MP does not have a clue about families living in accommodation without cooking facilities.

DaisyAnne

I don't think it is unusual to assume the post that comes after yours is in reply to it Doodledog and you were cutting towards whoever you were addressing.

Oh. So does that mean that you have bothered to read what I said now, and that you realise that I was not making an 'ignorant' comment, or 'damning' your post?

It would have been good to see an acknowledgement of that, if so.