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

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...

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.?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Then he ought to know better.

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.

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

If you read a little more about him you realise he has some very nasty ideas. He was Labour and a Labour councillor. He moved to Conservative in 2018 He had rocks dumped to block an entrance to a Travellers camp (and had to remove them). He is a strong Brexiteer. He has been reprimanded for anti-semitic remarks. It isn't just the poor he dislikes.

?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️

He scaled the greasy Tory pole quickly didn't he - from defector to MP in a year.

He's a good fit in his new tribe.

It would be interesting to know how much he claimed in expenses when he was a Labour councillor and raising his two boys. I bet there were child care expenses

OMG, I am pottering in my bedroom with Jeremy Vine Channel 5 on the TV.

Audrey from Buckinghamshire has just rang in, I am wondering why I am shocked that folks have no idea what life on the breadline is like in 2022. This viewer has put all the blame on the poor, flipping unbelievable (that is not the f word which I wanted to use but I am trying to be polite)

paddyann54

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

Oh yes, I did! I posted them on here.

Ooops! Misunderstood your post. Sorry!

GrannyGravy13

OMG, I am pottering in my bedroom with Jeremy Vine Channel 5 on the TV.

Audrey from Buckinghamshire has just rang in, I am wondering why I am shocked that folks have no idea what life on the breadline is like in 2022. This viewer has put all the blame on the poor, flipping unbelievable (that is not the f word which I wanted to use but I am trying to be polite)

Was it Audrey Fforbes-Hamilton maybe?