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

growstuff I'd guess you didn't get his eyewatering expenses! Cant be too difficult to feed 4 on over 300k !

Kinsi10

Lee Anderson was on talk radio this morning. He grew up in poverty and was a single parent to two children for many years. Well worth listening to.

So he should know better!

Does that explain why he's a misogynistic bigot, who has shown contempt for people who are in the same situation he was?

PS. I was a single parent to two children for many years and it didn't affect me like that.

Then he ought to know better.

Lee Anderson was on Talk radio this morning. He grew up in poverty and was a single parent of two children for many years. Well worth listening to.

Lee Anderson was on talk radio this morning. He grew up in poverty and was a single parent to two children for many years. Well worth listening to.

Why doesnt someone give this MP a small badly insulated flat, UB for a single person and see how effciently he budgets and cooks, over a period of, say, a month. A week is just playing housie. he should live it - of course while doing his day job, getting to work etc, but not having access to his salary during that month.

I am in my fifties and still have a teenager at home. I finished work at 6 last night, spent half an hour dealing with the person who was fitting my new boiler, and needed to then give teenager food before he left at 7 for football. He had pizza and chips. I am extraordinarily lucky in that I only work part tine. If I was working long hours with an hours commute 5 days a week to be honest they would be lucky to get a sausage roll.

None of this conversation would be necessary if the fundamental structural reasons for this poverty were addressed.

A diet of lentils and porridge isn't balanced anyway.

Riverwalk

I've come to hate 'cheap & nutritious' and 'cooked from scratch' so easy to spout yet so hard to achieve, DAY IN DAY OUT.

It sets my teeth on edge too. "Cooking from scratch" isn't always the healthier or cheaper option - it depends what the ingredients are. However, I guess it makes people feel virtuous.

I agree DiamondLily. Food prices have rocketed recently. I don't eat pasta, potatoes, rice, pastry, bread or ready made sauces for dietary reasons. Additionally, I don't eat much meat. In Summer I'm nearly self-sufficient in veg and salad. I hardly cook anything, apart from steaming or grilling.

A few months ago, I posted that my food budget for the week is £20 (it's increased by more than 10% since then) and there were people on here who couldn't believe it because they obviously spend a lot more. Even though I rarely turn my cooker on, my fuel bills have increased.

I eat very frugally (and healthily) and there's absolutely no way I could eat for 30p a meal consistently.

I've come to hate 'cheap & nutritious' and 'cooked from scratch' so easy to spout yet so hard to achieve, DAY IN DAY OUT.

Maudi

Why are we are third in the obese table if according to some they hardly have any money to eat. I've never seen so many obese people young and old and I travel all over the UK and don't tell me they can only afford junk food.

Not all obese people will be poor and struggling to pay bills, just as not all slim people are rich.

In the main, poorer people fill up on sandwiches, toast, chips, pies, pasties, baked potatoes, etc.

With the best will in the world how much lentil soup, porridge and other cheap & nutritious food cooked from scratch can one family cook and eat, every day. Many poorer parents are in very low paid jobs, not idling around all day, and that's the tragedy of today's poor they're working hard and still live hand to mouth.

Obesity and poverty in the developed world has been known about for years.

Maudi

Why are we are third in the obese table if according to some they hardly have any money to eat. I've never seen so many obese people young and old and I travel all over the UK and don't tell me they can only afford junk food.

Have you interviewed the people you see to find out what they eat?

It is a fact that that the areas which have the highest obesity rates are also the most deprived.

It's not difficult to work out why that is. In many restaurants, a plate of salad costs £15 or so. Salad doesn't make you feel full, but £15 worth of chips or pizza does. If a person is concerned about value (ie eating to feel full up for the lowest price) chips or pizza win hands down. There are many overweight/obese people who are also malnourished.

I don't know what that MP is talking about.

I was taught to cook at school, and taught by my mother, and I do cook from scratch, and we buy mainly fresh food - meat, fish, veg, salads, and fruit. Simply because we prefer home cooked to processed foods.

But, cheap, it is not.

It would actually be cheaper for us to live on takeaways, junk and processed food.?

Pasta is cheap, but you need something to make a sauce with. I make Spag Bol, but leanest mince is very expensive.

A joint of meat, from a butcher shop, is now an eye watering price.?

My grocery shopping bill has rocketed recently.

Honestly, I think he should have to live on UC for 3 months, feeding his family, and paying his bills out of it, and then perhaps he wouldn't spout such rubbish.?

Chocolatelovinggran

Blondiescot, how much is gruel these days??

I'm willing to bet someone on here will come along and tell you how they can rustle it up for next to nothing...

These Pooh and piglet cartoons are so good

Think on this.

Maudi

Why are we are third in the obese table if according to some they hardly have any money to eat. I've never seen so many obese people young and old and I travel all over the UK and don't tell me they can only afford junk food.

What a negative view of people you have Maudi. As you can see from the responses, yes, obesity is often linked to poverty. If you travel all over the UK I expect you see more fat people in deprived areas than in wealthy suburbs.

M0nica

Maudi back in the 1950s, during rationing we moved from London to Carlisle and I began to noticehow many fat women their were. I obviously commented on this and was told it was because they came from poor families where the wage earner got the best food, the children next and the women lived on sugar sandwiches, bread margarine and sugar.

Things haven't changed much. The cheapests food is processed foods made from the cheapest ingredients made palatable with fat and sugar. Chips, chicken nuggets, burgers, and the like. Go and have a walk round a supermarket in a poorer area or where poorer people shop and have a look at what it sells.

Obesity can often be a sign of poverty.

... this!

I also came from a poor background (in rural Lincolnshire). Although we did not live in dire poverty, money was tight and I too was, as a child, sent out to play in the street clutching a 'sugar sandwich'.

My grandmother - with whom I lived - was overweight. She was an excellent cook, understood enough about nutrition to provide for the family, but always put herself last and would fill up on heavy-carb food. Fish, meat and veggies were saved for those in the family who were working and bringing in a wage...

You're on the ball MOnica. As often!

You would think people would know that, wouldn't you?
Those who were taught all about cooking and nutrition in school, particularly.

Maudi back in the 1950s, during rationing we moved from London to Carlisle and I began to noticehow many fat women their were. I obviously commented on this and was told it was because they came from poor families where the wage earner got the best food, the children next and the women lived on sugar sandwiches, bread margarine and sugar.

Things haven't changed much. The cheapests food is processed foods made from the cheapest ingredients made palatable with fat and sugar. Chips, chicken nuggets, burgers, and the like. Go and have a walk round a supermarket in a poorer area or where poorer people shop and have a look at what it sells.

Obesity can often be a sign of poverty.

Growstuff, you are so right! Schools are charged with focusing on Reading,Writing, Mathematics, and Science and Technology to the detriment of Art, Music, PE etc.
Then, every man, woman, and dog has a bee in their bonnet about what else is the responsibility of the schools: sex education, budgeting, cooking, sewing, makeup (ok, I made that bit up)..

Actually we're 36th, but let's not allow facts to get in the way of a good victim blaming culture.

worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/obesity-rates-by-country