Really interesting artice re Jamie Oliver's new programme

but the country also pays for people on low/no income to feed themselves and their children

i understand your point about people needing to also have 'treats' - although i am not sure i agree with it

i just find it desperately depressing really - i see children every day who are clearly malnourished - and frankly the school meals although they make a big song and dance about them being healthy are pretty poor - merely removing chips and turkey twizzlers is not enough

my grandmother died much younger than she should have done because her early childhood was one of great privation - the illnesses from that time took their toll in later life - to me it is both tragic and scandalous that a generation of children who are absolutely not in her circumstances will also have a reduced life expectancy

Yeah, to a 'minimum standard'. And the absolute minimum (the cheapest) is, as I think we're beginning to agree upon, whatever's on cheapy in the discount supermarket. This is unlikely to be fresh veg.

I'd be really interested to know how much kebab meat, chips cheese and whatever other stuff those children were eating costs per portion.

lasagne: value lasagne sheets 31p, beef mince, 1.20, value tinned tomatoes, 26p, value mixed herbs, 26p, milk 42p a pint, value cheese 1.50. 33p a bag flour, value butter 84p. use 1/5 herbs: 5p, 1/2 the milk 21p, 1/5 cheese 30p, 2tbs flour 2p, knob butter 5p. so the cheapest i could do it for is £2.40 and i'd prefer to add some more veg. but this would do 6 portions at 40p each. is any takeaway cheaper than that?

I took it that her entire income for the week was £80 and £70 of it went in food. Which is why she is so hideously in debt.

I didn't see the programme but I V+ it. It'll be very interesting as I come from a very poor background and these were genuine issues for a lot of people. We rarely ate fruit but my mum cooked from scratch as much as possible, our diet mostly consisting of soup and scouse! We were broken into 4 times and twice the food from our cupboards were stolen, all of it. We couldn't afford to replace it and had neighbours 'donating' food. I can only imagine how much pride my mum and dad had to swallow to accept that help. Many people, JO included would have no concept of people living like this and even I forget sometimes but I imagine it's even more prevalent now. My need to always have the fridge and cupboards stocked no matter what is definitely symptomatic of my childhood though, which makes me one of the lucky ones in that I value food and feeding my family a good healthy diet, over and above luxuries/holidays etc. I could so easily have gone the other way.

x

It may not be a rational need but it's a pretty strong compulsion - think how quickly cravings kick in when one's on a diet; now imagine that as a permanent condition. I'd be down the betting shop and the pub all day, every day if it were me.

But you can't use "bits" you'd have to buy the whole thing at once. Which would significantly increase your shopping bill that week. When you live week to week thats not always possible.

You can't make the same amount for less IMO, and I'd query some of those prices.

But given the average UK weekly shop is around £120, I'd hazard that at least 50% of the country were in a position to spend £70+.

But the point isn't whether or not she can afford that (she clearly can), but whether she is making efficient use of her finances - clearly not.

I just totted up last night's beef chilli - proper butcher's beef, San Marzano tomatos, locally grown peppers - and it came to £3.20 for the two of us, and that was a generous portion. That would get me one small portion of doner meat and chips at the kebeb shop.

What I find interesting - myself and MrX have a food budget of £120 a month. We used to do £40 in Iceland a week. Now we do £60 on meat a month and freeze it in portion-sized bags and £40 on sauces, pasta, rice, fresh veg, etc... Plus £20 on luxuries. So we eat the same amount, we eat actual genuine meat products, and MrX cooks sauces from scratch as well as from jars, and it costs the same.

Go figure!

yes - and i might not eat so i could have the bottle of vodka - but i would not be not feeding my children - and if i wasnt i think that i should be stopped

anyway - i think i might bow out of this discussion now because i run the risk of coming over even more right wing and draconian than i usually do ?

Yeah, and the average UK wage is what? Lies, damned lies and statistics P&P.

Really, take away every night is.... A silly extreme.

You'd have to know how to cook, though. Many people have never had the opportunity to learn, and if you don't know how to cook, you probably can't afford to just have a go in case you ruin it and then have nothing to eat.

okay buying everything on that list comes to £5.12. they are all the prices from tescos website today, giving you 85p a portion with excess herbs, flour, butter and cheese. with which you could make something else. is takeaway kebab really cheaper than that?

we try and spend under £25 a week for us. we can't afford takeaways, round here fish and chips for 2 is nearing £10, for that much we can eat for a few days.

is that a typing error? She clearly can't afford £70 a week

JOs point though is that the education needs to start again, somewhere along the line people have stopped being shown how, and if the government won't then he jolly well will. I think he's a good good man, I don't care how smug he comes across, someone has to do something, and it may as well be him, he has a lot of goodwill behind him.

Yes, yes, I know all about means, modes and medians.

Still haven't seen your facts though.

P&P this isnt about statistics. You obviously find it impossible to accept that not everyone is like you. All you need to do now is spread your wisdom and problem solved- poor people eating as well as everyone else (despite the fact that as sophies article points out, the lower classes have always been less healthy than the middle and upper classes. Its obviously not as straightforward as get off your arse and go to the Bangali Butchers solution)

He is right though, Sophie, as crudely as it was put. That is the exact environment I grew up in and the one my niece, who nows lives with us, has come from. I live above a working class pub - drink and fags are priorities here and saying otherwise would be a lie. When we had more input we had a go at a more educated menu (for want of a better phrase) and the uptake wasn't half as good as the burger and chips line. People will come in and have burger and chips four times a week - as will their young children - and if we were to sell quality meat and bread, nobody would pay the price for it round here.

To comment on the article - I have to agree wholeheartedly and it really saddens me. We live in quite a rural area with farms coming out of our bums, yet some of the things in the children's lunchboxes I've heard of make me mad. Niece used to take three chocolate bars, two bags of crisps and a ham and chocolate spread sandwich to school. She ate McDonalds every night, along with her brother who is diabetic. She goes to the local sports and fitness college and an ice cream van is outside every morning as well as every evening. SIL can cook because I've seen her do it, and as a trained aerobics instructor, she has great nutritional knowledge (she spouts it often enough). Yet she still chooses to feed her children sugary rubbish. She isn't symptomatic of a generation that can't cook as much as one that doesn't care. Not all single mums on benefits are like her, and thank goodness they aren't - but so many are. As to why, I'd hazard a guess it's to do with mental health; their circumstances lead to depression and a lack of motivation. The problem is far bigger than the cost and availability of certain foods, I'd say...I wish I knew what the solution was.

It might well be, I'm afraid, if you include the cost of getting to Tesco to buy the stuff.

I think it depends on a lot of different things, availablity of fresh fruit and veg is one. I live in what is considered a run down area but due to different cultures that live here, there are fruit and veg shops next to each other everywhere. I easily feed my family for a week with fresh fruit and veg for 15quid a week. I find that the meat and fish is the most expensive so we do the extra journey to stock up and freeze for later use. I also think is as basic as education and building that into yourlife style; it was not unusal for my husband who was brought up on convenience foods to whack something in the microwave most of the week and see a fresh cooked meal as a treat or a sunday dinner. Whereas my parents never allowed convenience foods in the house and most things like fish fingers and burgers and pizzas I never tasted until I was at school. Yet my husbands parents were much more wealthy than then my parents were and worked less hours, so maybe it should have been the other way around? ]Could that also be down to cultural differences or a generational thing?

That's pretty unfair (and tiresome).

I'm well aware of the differences, what angers me is people's refusal to help themselves when there are some simple and valid options out there.

I would also say that this diet is contributing to depression, stress and anxiety. I'm not sure if its a contraversial point but i have read in many books about the link between poor diet and poor mental health.

I don't disagree, gwtw, if you read my other posts - it was the DM-ish "They can afford to drink, smoke and gamble, that's more important to them than feeding their children" tone I (incorrectly) detected in ONE's post I was objecting to.

Well use a titter of wit, look at the benefit rates & the net wage of someone on minimum wage and decide for yourself what their 'food' budget is going to be like.

then it's really sad. 5 year olds should not have their teeth pulled as they're rotten. it seemed food was only considered on a daily basis, perhaps he needs to teach more than how to cook salmon (which IMO isn't exactly a cheap meal) mince, sausages, pulses, stewing joints, veg, grains, pollack and possibly tinned tuna are cheaper. would one supermarket trip a week make it cheaper?

I don't think it's as simple as that, and I think the article in the OP goes some way towards explaining some reasons why that might be...

Lasagne: value lasagne sheets 31p, beef mince, 1.20, value tinned tomatoes, 26p, value mixed herbs, 26p, milk 42p a pint, value cheese 1.50. 33p a bag flour, value butter 84p. use 1/5 herbs: 5p, 1/2 the milk 21p, 1/5 cheese 30p, 2tbs flour 2p, knob butter 5p. so the cheapest i could do it for is £2.40 and i'd prefer to add some more veg. but this would do 6 portions at 40p each. is any takeaway cheaper than that?

Now, a challenge is to, using the ingredients you listed above, cook a lasagne that tastes good. One problem sometimes with getting some people off high-fats and high-sugar diets can be that their tastes could lean more towards sweet-tasting foods. Cooking the lasagne you describe above, I can imagine might not taste as sweet as some people are used to. Also, I don't think the size of the portion for that money would equal the 1.1kg for £2 from Iceland or similar.

It's all very well people saying "all they have to do is this, that, and the other", but if someone doesn't know how to cook, doesn't know how to shop for seasonal vegetables, doesn't know how to buy meat etc, then it's akin to climbing a mountain for them, especially if they feel they're going to be laughed at or looked down on. I think a lot of people who want to learn to cook can probably be a bit intimidated by the way food has come on in recent years too.

Re: having treats on benefits, when I was a single parent on benefits cigarettes were the only thing I had just for me. All my money went on heating/bills/food shopping/nappies. I budgeted hard so that I could afford so many a week, if I hadn't have had those I'd have been even more miserable than I was to start with.

You can only educate those that want educating.

Of course, but unless you have a car that simply isn't practical. I couldn't carry a week's worth of shopping for just myself on public transport, never mind for a family of four.

Another useful thing would be to show people how to cook. It may sound silly to some (including me a while back) but I was discussing with friends what they did after school. I realised that whilst I knew some of the t.v programmes from the psat I did not know all of them simply because I was in the kitchen watching my mum cook. I did not want to be in the kitchen and found it boring at the time (plus mates at school would take the piss) but my dad would send us to the kitchen to "watch your mother cook". Plus we were allowed to stir the pots and use the knives which I fear the H&S policys may be holding back most of the home economics in schools.

I read that further down ? - point taken. Just wanted to explain my personal experience of it. We lived on white pasta, cheese and bake sauce when I was younger; it was the cheapest way to feed six of us. One of the many reasons we decided to stop at one child (until we suddenly became foster parents, that is) is because I want to be able to afford to feed my family good food and in our circumstances we'd struggle with more.

Hyacinth - agree very much that depression may be contributed to by diet. I am slowly engineering the sugar out of niece's meals and it makes such a difference to her moods, particularly in the morning.

I'll have to disagree there Sophie - Gin and I used to carry our weekly shop back to the flat on foot when we were students. Yes it was heavy, and yes it was a pain, but we did it.

It not pratical or comfortable but I have to do it for a family of six.