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

If you read back, as it’s suggested we do growstuff JdotJ stated she’s worked in a food bank for 3 years.

Miss A, who is blaming schools or the poor?

Blame schools, blame "the poor".
The only people who are skipping through this crisis are those at the top of the tree.
Not because they are thrifty, or good money managers.
Not because they are so warm and empathetic, even.

I cannot believe people would still choose to back them over this issue, because the rest of us are all worthless and expendable to them. All of us.

volver

^Schools used to teach these things so yes, why not!^

Nobody answered my post about Eton, so I'll rephrase it.

For me how to learn how to cook pate sucre or decorate the living room would have meant taking time away from actually learning academic things. Like it or not, we need people who are good at learning academic things. So how do we decide who needs to learn to change a plug and who needs to know exactly how the electricity is generated in the first place?

Do we just have to learn cooking and budgeting if we are in a school where it is deemed unlikely that we will ever have to know how to speak Mandarin?

BTW I can change a plug.

I don’t like the idea of schools as simply fitting people for work. IMO all of them, from Eton to Bash Street, should prepare people for life. Whether that’s cooking, plug changing, poetry appreciation or playing an instrument, I think that all young people should be taught things that have the potential to enrich their lives. Not as paid-for extras, but as part of their education.

I find it sad when people say that there is ‘no point’ in learning things that don’t lead directly into jobs. I understand it, but think it’s a narrow view of what education should be about.

I also think that learning things in the abstract is less useful than a more holistic approach, and that at a younger age at least, broad-based projects would stick in the mind more than ‘chopping skills’ or disembodied maths. Chopping veg to make a pie that is part of a lesson on ratios or fractions, on the lines of ‘if each tray of pies takes 12 carrots, and there are four pies per tray, and each pie serves four children, how many carrots does each child get? There are three times more peas than carrots. How many peas are in a pie, and in a portion of pie?’ will be better remembered than separate lessons that have no immediate application.

I know from first hand experience at work that we have parents who are living a very hand-to-mouth existence. Our morning playgroup children have a snack break midway through the sessions - parents bring snacks for their own child and they are then encouraged to go through to our parents' room for a chat and a cuppa while the children have their snack. We had one parent who stopped coming for a few weeks and when we enquired if there was anything wrong, she finally admitted she was embarrassed because she couldn't afford to bring snacks for her two little ones. We stepped in and provided snacks for them (done discreetly so she doesn't feel singled out). Another parent stopped coming because he couldn't afford the bus fares, so we now provide transport for him and his son.

JdotJ

Schools used to teach these things so yes, why not!

There is a list of foods to be given at Foodbanks which we adhere to. One being Tea Bags, another Rice/Pasta.
In my experience the ones given to the client are handed back as 'not the ones wanted'

So what experience do you have? Do you work for a food bank?

choughdancer

Whitewavemark2

I think that we have deviated a long way from the subject?.

The reason people can’t cook proper food is poverty.

Nothing more or less.

I agree with so many comments on this thread, but I think this one sums it up perfectly. Every crisis we have (Covid 19 for example) ends with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Please correct me if I am wrong about this.

It seems to me that we are encouraged by the rich and powerful to blame and misrepresent people in need, by calling them 'benefit fraudsters', 'illegal migrants', 'homeless addicted to drugs and alcohol', ' lazy', 'obese'; anything to make it seem that they are at fault.

The problem is that inequality increases year upon year; the gap between the richest and the poorest widens consistently; the people in power have demonstrably no idea of the situation of people using food banks, filling up tummies with the cheapest carbs and fats. The 'big reset' needs to tackle this, but I don't honestly think it ever will with the system as it is.

I would like to add the following which I have taken from FB. I know the person who wrote it and I know the work this person is involved in.

I really don't know how the people who are being referred to in this post keep going. It seems to me that the gap between the poor and the rich is most definitely widening.

Here is the FB quote which I think says it all:

"I live in the Garden of England, in the wealthy South East in the 6th richest country in the world and I have just spoken to someone who regularly doesn't send their toddler to pre-school because she hasn't got any food to put in her lunchbox.
There are local women who cannot afford to have periods, which is unfortunate because they are unavoidable.
There are families who reguarly have to sit in the dark / cold as they run out of fuel credit on their meters.
There is something fundamentally wrong in our society that our Government thinks that this is acceptable.
If you can pop something in your local foodbank collection point please do.... every single item counts.
This is 2022. This is the UK.
Rare rant over."

He's wrong in most cases. However there is a lot of cases that do not know how to cook from scratch. Or how to budget. It's not taught anywhere. There were no food banks when I was raising my family in the 70's on low wages and quite high costs. No Universal Credit no Tax Credits. I learnt from my Mum how to make reasonable meals for less money. However she also fed us once or twice a week even if it was Egg & Chips. Some of the people (not all) using food banks do have some bad habits and their idea of luxuries they could do without could do with being adjusted. He was wrong to say that Food Banks aren't necessary they are.

In 1966 when I was trying to persuade my parents that I was old enough and sufficiently capable to look after myself I drew a list of meals, with the ingredient costs for 1 week. I remember that it included liver! It came to about £1. My monthly season ticket cost £10. When conducting negotiations with them i asked if they would lend me some money until I got my ticket refund. The answer was a sharp no and so I was stymied.

When I did move out my rent for a share of a one bed roomed flat, with 2 other girls was £4 a week so I don't my food estimate was unreasonable. I can't imagine what £1 would work out to now.

“ Show me a “poor” family who haven’t got a mobile phone each”.

Probably plenty. But the adults need one, how else can they apply for jobs? Fill in government forms etc? Come on think about it

Schools used to teach these things so yes, why not!

Nobody answered my post about Eton, so I'll rephrase it.

For me how to learn how to cook pate sucre or decorate the living room would have meant taking time away from actually learning academic things. Like it or not, we need people who are good at learning academic things. So how do we decide who needs to learn to change a plug and who needs to know exactly how the electricity is generated in the first place?

Do we just have to learn cooking and budgeting if we are in a school where it is deemed unlikely that we will ever have to know how to speak Mandarin?

BTW I can change a plug.

There was an interesting thread on MN recently, from a volunteer at a food bank.

She was saying that donations are drying up a bit, as people are struggling with their own bills, the food bank is at capacity for the amount of people they can help, and was asking opinions on whether to start turning "regulars" away, to help new people, in urgent crisis, or whether to just refuse to help anyone not already being helped by them.

She said that some of their clients had been using them, very frequently, for 2 years - which seems a very long time, without resolution, and creating a reliance on what was originally intended to be short term/crisis help.

Other volunteers gave their experiences and some did let customers choose their own goods/brands, within limitations. Other food banks worked from their own lists.

Some needed professional referral, others were self referral.

They all seem to operate differently.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4544521-to-ask-how-long-you-think-food-banks-should-support-people-for

Callistemon21

^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^.

No, I can't, not providing balanced nutrition as well.
So I'll donate my Tesco vouchers to the Trussell Trust via the Tesco website.

I just did that but in doing so am I enabling the Government into making people think food banks are essential and the norm?

Not virtue signalling btw, it's just that people may not know they can donate Tesco (and probably other) vouchers if they cannot get to a supermarket easily.

Schools used to teach these things so yes, why not!

There is a list of foods to be given at Foodbanks which we adhere to. One being Tea Bags, another Rice/Pasta.
In my experience the ones given to the client are handed back as 'not the ones wanted'

MibsXX

Well, this step child just tried a baton of raw swede dipped in a little salad cream... its actually not too bad so theres tonights summery dinner sorted. Off to save some power so son can get a couple hours revision in later, be lucky all stay safe and well, and above all be kind to each other, have a great weekend x

... raw swede will give you ghastly wind... I've eaten it thinly sliced like that with a 'dip' of salad cream.

Be careful!

Poverty and Learning To Cook as part of the school curriculum are two separate issues, aren't they?

Obviously, if money is tight and you know how to cook / understand nutrition you might fare better - but you will still be poor.

Under libertarian free-market, small-state, economies there are going to be winners and losers. And the losers will always be the poor. The only resource they have is their labour and if they can't sell that for a reasonable reward, they are going to be impoverished. Menial jobs - though absolutely essential to the functioning of society - are poorly paid and as the cost of living rises, even two family adults working, will not necessarily cover these rising costs. They spend their money as soon as they are paid - they have to, to cover their outgoings, and there's nothing left. If they do manage to save a few pounds here and there - it will only take a broken fridge or freezer, washing machine - or car (if they have one) and those few pounds will be eaten up.

That's how the poor live. They can cook from scratch every time - even make Miss Adventure's lentil stew from the left over bath water , they can budget for every last 1p, but they will still be poor. Because they are not paid enough to live on and no amount of cookery skill nor budgeting ability will alter that, nor make them less poor. They will live at the level of subsistence.

Well, this step child just tried a baton of raw swede dipped in a little salad cream... its actually not too bad so theres tonights summery dinner sorted. Off to save some power so son can get a couple hours revision in later, be lucky all stay safe and well, and above all be kind to each other, have a great weekend x

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.

No, I can't, not providing balanced nutrition as well.
So I'll donate my Tesco vouchers to the Trussell Trust via the Tesco website.

Yes, well politicians in any country have a habit of blaming poverty on the poor.

A trait shared by the rich, the well-off and all those who have been so fortunate that they have never in all their life had to worry about where the next meal, pair of new shoes or the money to pay the next utility bill or the rent was going to come from.

All of them should know better, shouldn't they?

That said, some people would manage better if they had been taught to budget and to keep to their budget, or taught how to cook and how to shop economically.

But it distinctly unhelpful and unkind to muddy the waters of debate by positing a correlation between poverty and the inability or unwillingness to cook or budget.

Some Victorians distinguished between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor and left it at that. Others, like the founder of the Salvation Army realised that what the poor needed was "Soup, soap and salvation" and that they could not possibly provide any of it for themselves on the wages they were paid.

We seem to have come full circle back to Victorian attitudes, so which of my two examples do you (personally) intend to follow?

That of the fortunate and patronising, or that of Booth and others with a more realistic view of society's step-children?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had a government that actually cared about people? It would be even better if they understood that making sure that everyone has access to good food, a decent home and decent education would actually benefit the country? And they and their cronies would make even more money - huzzah!

Susieq62

I volunteered for 10 years at CAB! Mental health issues, long term ill health issues, lousy landlords, redundancy , etc etc! All contribute to poverty ! Many are only one pay day away from being in financial trouble ! None of us can judge what people are experiencing ! At any time we can hit a big hurdle and be floored by it!
Some compassion plus understanding is required in these very uncertain times

Unfortunately, thinking about that makes people realise how easily it could happen to them, and no-one wants to live in daily fear through choice, so I am not surprised that many just "can't see it" they simply don't want to, or else are soo sure they'd cope better, cook better, not put themselves in that position..

I volunteered for 10 years at CAB! Mental health issues, long term ill health issues, lousy landlords, redundancy , etc etc! All contribute to poverty ! Many are only one pay day away from being in financial trouble ! None of us can judge what people are experiencing ! At any time we can hit a big hurdle and be floored by it!
Some compassion plus understanding is required in these very uncertain times

That is very apparent.

09:21Grandmabatty

What have you done? We can all virtual signal on here to make ourselves feel good.

Of course, we could go back to Pauper Schools to appease those looking so far to the right they must have a cricked neck.

Set up to give a sound, basic education, there intention was to prepare the poor for their future station in life. I suppose, if they are lucky, that might include arithmetic and reading (although as we move even further to the right, I doubt girls would be allowed to read).

Of course, this will agree with the idea of the poor as moral degenerates such as spouted by Lee Anderson and his followers - I mean, nail varnish, for heaven's sake. It will also help deal with the idea that pauperism is hereditary - which I have also seen alluded to on GN.