Vocal Voices

A report shows that 5.9 million adults in the UK experienced food poverty in the six months up to February and there are 1.7 million children living in food-insecure households.

The issue is raised again and the runners and riders are off!

There are calls from the top for:

A minister for food.
More food banks
Benefits, inc child allowance / benefit, to be paid as a mix of cash and vouchers for food, utilities and clothes
Free school meals for all

What there is not much call for, except from ordinary people:

Wholesalers and supermarkets not leaving some 33% of food in the fields to rot because it does not meet their "ideal" shape, size or appearance.
Cooking and nutrition as a core part of the school curriculum for all
Incentives to hold classes for those who missed out on the above at school, plus parenting and simple household economics - banking, control of finances etc.

There is a worrying undercurrent by those in power to blame the poor for being poor and that it is necessary to control them. Workhouses anyone?

Yes, there are those who are fickle and fritter away their money / benefits, but the vast majority of poor just need a bit of practical help.

A lot of people do not know how to cook. They just buy expensive pre-packed food.

Could probably buy enough food to make four meals instead of pre-packed junk.

Have watched some programmes about this problem. Shows the house with a large TV and a mobile phone but no food.

cruiser2 wrote:A lot of people do not know how to cook. They just buy expensive pre-packed food.

Could probably buy enough food to make four meals instead of pre-packed junk.

That is certainly true and is why some people are calling for practical help to help them overcome.

However, I see that since this aired the "I'm all right Jacks" are out in force. They actually want to close the food banks. Some want people to get official proof that they can support a child before getting "permission" to start a family, proof that they have adequate parenting skills and even an IQ test.

We have become a sick country.

cruiser2 wrote:Have watched some programmes about this problem. Shows the house with a large TV and a mobile phone but no food.

This is a big problem. Nowadays all levels of income see the Internet, pay for TV and a mobile phone contract, upgraded every 18 months to 2 years, as _Essential_. As essential or more essential than food.

If the government wants to do something about this, they can buy these 5.9m a freezer and, as WM says, send them to cooking and budgeting lessons before they get the freezer, as a pre-requisite.

3 year guarantee, make the vendor live up to it.

That will do more for feeding those with low incomes than any amount of food banks and for a fraction of the eventual cost.

Workingman wrote:

cruiser2 wrote:We have become a sick country.

Actually, from what I recall growing up, the attitude of "if you can't afford a child don't bring one into the world and expect me to feed it" was a lot more prevalent then. In fact society was not above removing children from parents who would not make them a priority. I know it happens today, but the prevalence of "social media" and press who will take up any idiots cause, makes it easier to fight.

In my mind we have become a far more forgiving society. Far from this engendering some kind of respect, it has had the opposite effect. The more we give the more is demanded "by right". This cannot go on there has to be some form of personal responsibility. But that doesn't mean the government can't enlighten the "entitled".

Most of these harsh comments come from people who are sick and tired of a lack of personal responsibility and an air of entitlement.

As of 23rd March there were 1.7m people aged 16 - 65 classed as economically active but unemployed. 700,000 of those are the new unemployed who have lost their jobs in the pandemic. That means about 4.2m of the headline figure for food poverty are in some form of work with some being students and others in the gig economy.

So 29% of the 5% of us who are unemployed do not fit the benefits scroungers description. The epithet gets thrown at them nonetheless.

This is a multi-faceted problem for many decent people who are in work or studying. That will mean we need a few solutions and not just the simple ones aimed at the professionally unemployed. Those people are so often used, though, because they are an easy target to aim at and it is ever so easy to lump all the others in with them.

Maybe if working people got a living wage it might help!

Workingman wrote:Maybe if working people got a living wage it might help!

Wasn't that what the minimum wage was supposed to be all about?

There is the government's living wage and the real world one, but it is not the whole problem.

There is a desperate need in this country to break out of the ready meal / takeaway / eat on the go culture. Not only is it expensive and leads to economic food poverty, as in the report, but it also drives the other food poverty - poor nutrition. It's a double whammy.

I often watched 'Eat well for less' and it was shocking! A lot of the families were in well paid and senior / high-up jobs yet not only could they not cook, they could not shop or budget - they had never been taught to do either.

A lot of those in the 5.9 million, as well as millions of others, will be in the bracket of never having learned.

Well I guess my father can't cook very well. But in my family, from my parents down, everyone can cook and all are good cooks who can budget and put a decent meal together on a shoestring. Right down to my grandkids.

So it really is about education in the long run and not all education is from school. Some has to start in the home.

However, I see that since this aired the "I'm all right Jacks" are out in force. They actually want to close the food banks.

The comment about closing food banks is interesting.

Can't speak for other areas, but here the local food bank has actually appealed for people to stop giving and more people to come forward and claim. Their shelves are full, they are not shifting stuff, and I gather at one point surplus food was being sent across-county to a food bank in Weymouth/Portland.

I wonder if it's not time for an in-depth enquiry as to how the whole principle of providing free food via food banks works. I have actively supported them in the past, but not for a while.