Woman That Grew Up Poor Shares The Harsh Reality Of Why Poorer Families Buy Junk Food
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Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has received some heat lately – and not just in the kitchen. Through his #AdEnough campaign Oliver has been lobbying for a sugar tax which would increase the prices for fatty, sugary junk food. Oliver told MPs: “This a tax for good; this is a tax for love; this is designed to protect and give to the most disadvantaged communities,” but others find his statement and campaign hypocritical and harmful.
According to the Sun, Oliver has a Cookies and Cream drink, served in a chocolate cup, which contains 46 teaspoons of sugar, which is six times the daily recommended amount of sugar for a child. This was not the only fact people took issue with. Twitter user Ketty Hopkins wrote a thread, that has since gone viral, which explains exactly why the tax would harm lower-income communities rather than help them.
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has been on a crusade to tax fatty and sugary junk food, which he said will help disadvantaged communities – but not everyone agrees
Image credits: jamieoliver
The name of his campaign is #AdEnough, which seeks to change the way junk food is advertised to children. Oliver has taken his cause to TV and can be seen in commercials saying, “am asking is it appropriate to advertise food that is high in salt, fat and sugar to children at prime time when obesity is crippling the NHS?”The NHS is the U.K.’s health service, one of Oliver’s claims is that obesity is costing taxpayers, due to related medical issues.
Many found Oliver’s words and campaign to be hypocritical
Image credits: praxxxxxis
And one Twitter user pointed out how, if he succeeded, it would harm the communities he claimed to help
Image credits: sibylpain
Twitter user Ketty Hopkins shared her own experience growing up in a low-income family and explained the harsh reality behind why healthy eating was not always an option. Hopkins addressed the situations that lead people into poverty in the first place using her own life.
Image credits: sibylpain
Image credits: sibylpain
Image credits: sibylpain
And how when you were concerned with keeping your head above water, healthy food was not a realistic option due to lack of income. Hopkins called out people who judged their poor eating choices with simple assumptions such as laziness.
Image credits: sibylpain
Image credits: sibylpain
Image credits: sibylpain
Image credits: sibylpain
Image credits: sibylpain
While Hopkins does not advocate for unhealthy eating, she simply shares that in her case, the result of her unhealthy eating did not significantly affect her health later on.
Image credits: sibylpain
Image credits: sibylpain
She points out that if her father had not been able to afford these sugary, fatty foods they might have had nothing to eat at all – which would be a worst-case scenario.
After sharing her story she pointed out that if the government really wanted to help these people they need to change the system that keeps them at disadvantaged
Image credits: sibylpain
Image credits: sibylpain
Image credits: sibylpain
A foreigner in the U.K shared how she had been shocked at how expensive healthy eating was there compared to her country
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Image credits: sibylpain
Image credits: UrbanNathalia
Others commended her for sharing the eye-opening thread
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It should be the other way around. The healthy food should be made cheaper instead of the unhealthy food more expensive. Making any food MORE expensive isn't going to help poor families.
When I was a kid in the 1980s and 1990s, junk food WAS more expensive, I don't even remember eating it that often other than maybe as a special treat on a road trip or something, and even then we usually brought real food with us. At some point in my teens, so late 1990s, I started noticing that junk food was getting cheaper, while real food was more expensive, or maybe they just jacked the prices on real food faster, I don't know. I DO know this, most major junk food/processed food manufacturers are owned by the same companies that happily sell us diabetes and blood pressure meds and the like, so we can "manage" but not cure our health issues...
You don't need to cook an entire roast chicken meal from scratch in order to provide a healthy, nutritious meal, especially with kids! Grilled cheeses, veggies and dip, avocado on toast, homemade hash browns and scrambled eggs... I've learnt as a Mom that when it comes to feeding kids the presentation and creativity level is KEY. Turn bananas into dolphins by splitting the top part to make a mouth and draw a pair of eyes. I'll buy a box of blueberries in the summer, when they're the cheapest and then freeze them. I gave them a cool name: "ice dots" and now my daughter can't get enough of "ice dots". I can't speak for this girl's specific situation but in my opinion (and in my experience) there's really no excuse for giving your kids frozen meals, sugary cereals and McDonald's crapola every other day. You can easily prepare a much healthier meal at home for the same cost. You've got to be creative and you've got to be willing!
Continued 2; All of this is before you take into consideration peoples differences in person. Do they have allergies, conditions which cause them to be unable to eat certain food groups? Are there mental blocks such as autism in play? General dislikes of food and alternatives are too expensive. This post gave you a small glance into another's world, a world shared by a large portion of people and like others you've failed to truly empathise with the wide range of situations that cause your solution to be fantasy. And as rightfully said, if processed/junk food increases in price, that's a lot of hungry people, because we can't afford to go into the next price range and there's nothing left for us down there.
continued; Being creative and picking the right foods for a balanced diet aren't the issue, we all know, and see every day what's the correct choice. It's just not our choice. I've seen posts of people trying to calculate current food costs in shop saying "see look you buy these things" They either cause diet issues or provide a perfectly balanced meal plan which can be sustained for half the time before the next paycheck. because they forget the other expenses in life and how little we actually get as income. But it's all fine right? Because my weekly income went up by around £1 this April "Yay".... covers a good third of my increase to weekly gas costs. lets just ignore the other inflations because that's already a depressing comparison. I have £2 less to spend each paycheck on food because of gas alone.
Trust me, it's not mcdonalds and sugary food (we hope it was that good) . And as she rightly put, it's not just about buying the food, it's the mental state behind the person has been effected and oppressed. If I could afford to buy any food I wanted, trust me, I wouldn't be getting my intake from £1 ready meals. Even when you buy from reduced sections you can't afford to maintain whats required for a healthy diet when on benefits or low income. The choice of foods you gave are an example to how disconnected you are from this issue. vegetables are too expensive. You are then limited to cans which are either horrible in taste or tasteless, also effecting mental state in wanting to put the effort into cooking the meal. Not only that but you forget storage, do you think we have giant fridges and freezers to store prepared food, No. and living alone makes that worse, because if you try buy bulk, which more cost effective, everything goes out of date before you can finish it.
right. Let a single mom spend another hour (at the very least) on cooking DAILY after she gets back home from 12 hours of work. Not even talking about avocados that are expensive. It's not about your cREatIvITy with food for kids. It's about food itself. I didn't need any presentation for my food as a kid. I was just happy to have it in my poor family.
Now get deppression and work 12h/day on a minimum wage job and then get back to us and tell how bloody easy it is.
Advocado's are expensive and for hipsters...
But then the rich can't hate the poor! How dare you take that away from them!
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It's awesome watching you twats whine. We're poor: reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. "Advocates" for the poor: reeeeeeeeeeeeee.
One of the problems with Oliver's proposition is that it is punitive (the stick as opposed to the carrot). He is going to make eating harder for the poor, the only people who need help. He should instead create a subsidy for fresh vegetables and fruit, making them affordable.
Yael, I live in Australia and bananas are $3-$5 a kilo which is about 5-6 bananas (depending on size). We go through on average 3 bags of apples a week at $3.50-$5 a bag. Fortunately I am lucky and can afford to buy nutritional foods but I am not ignorant enough to know that is not the case for everyone. A family tray of lasagne is $10 but to buy all the ingredients yourself to feed the same amount of people is double that. Lasagne sheets are $3, mince is $7 and that is not including vegies, lasagne sauce, cheese etc. It ends up being double the amount. Meat pie you can buy a 6 pack for $5-$6 butbto make the same amount it will cost $3 for puff pastry, $7 for mince, $1 worth of flour and butter to make the short crust pastry, and then add things like onion, gravy, garlic etc. 2 tins of soup is $3 but to buy ingredients to make soup is triple the price. For tacos $7 for mince, then add tomatoes $2, lettuce $2-$3, cheese $4, add seasonings and spices, taco shells or wraps etc when you can buy 3 premade home brand pizzas for $9.99. Also if everyone can afford what you said then there would be no need for food banks or other charities to help feed people who can’t afford food, let alone nutritious food.
Yale, I live next to Australia, in New Zealand, we have similar currencies, cultures, and food pricing problems. As foxxy said, to buy ingredients to make a meal outweighs the cost of the same meal premade. We are isolated nations with a huge distance for food to travel to reach us. Even the food we produce is overpriced. A few years ago, milk cost more than petrol, and our main export is dairy. As to your working comment, you have no idea what other factors people have going on. And as foxxy said she can afford nutritious food, she is merely pointing out not all people can. I don't have a job, I'm a single mum. What do you think. And here's what you didn't know: I have spina bifida, almost died two years ago, take 13 different medications per day to survive, half my digestive tract is missing. All my energy goes into raising my son. Should I be judged?
Lauren Caswell, you know what also sucks. Australia has a lot of wonderful produce yet we send a lot of our top quality stuff overseas (especially meat) and we get charged ridiculous prices. I went to buy a roast beef as a treat the other day and the cheapest was approx $17.00 for a tiny, pissy little one. I also treated us to some marinated pork ribs and for 2 racks it cost me $39, I will never be buying that again. But even for the cheaper cuts is expensive. We may have better wages but our general cost of living is outrageous. In Adelaide (where I live), we pay the highest rates of electricity in the world. And Adelaide pays the highest water rates in Australia. Petrol/diesel is fluctuating between $1.20-$1.80 a litre and just these few things add a lot of the extra costs to our food.
Yael, Read my comments properly. I have already stated that we can afford to feed our kids nutritional food. But it’s not the case for many families. Also I can’t get a job I have 2 kids with disabilities that have regular appts, I don’t drive, I have no qualifications, references or skills and I have some health issues of my own. Unfortunately no one will hire me because I have to be picky with the hours I work due to constant appts. Speech therapy, Occupational therapy, physio, psychology, paediatrician, GP, etc just to name a few. I can’t just get any job because I have a hip deformity (bilateral coxa profunda and coxa vulga), I can’t sit for long periods and I can’t stand for long periods so I need to find a balance. There is lack of jobs where I am and because I have no skills or anything and I am 32 it makes it even harder. I also don’t drive so because of my kids regular appts I need a job close by. But again we can afford nutritious food, but it wasn’t always the case.
Foxxy- as an American fortunate enough to visit your gorgeous country, I was amazed (jaw to the floor) at the high cost of groceries. A morning run to McDonalds for orange juice and biscuits and coffee was outrageous. My children were about 11 and 13 at the time and being from California, they were used to an abundance of fresh fruits and veggies. I'd go to the farmers market twice a week and we consumed mass quantities of fruits and vegetables. I had to tell them No while in Australia. No banana this morning. No avocado on that toast... It was just too expensive and we were blessed just to be there but we saved for a long time.... I can't imagine not having access to cheap, fresh produce.
None of this is healthy, but good point.
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Afterthought, you mentioned in another thread you have the luxury of being a stay at home mom since your husband is the breadwinner. Perhaps you get a part time job so you can afford to feed your children a beneficial diet.
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Like I said earlier, at the end of the day it's your life, your body and your health on the line. I'm a single mother so I'm aware of the costs involved in running a household. I strongly believe that as parents we must provide the tools for our children to succeed, even if you're unwilling to model it yourself. I stand by my comment that as a parent, disregarding the importance of a healthy diet and an active lifestyle is doing a disservice to your children.
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My partner and I are not well off but we manage to buy a week's worth of fresh fruit and veg for under twenty pounds (UK money) from the local supermarket. Usually a bag of carrots, potatoes, onions, broccoli, leeks, cabbage and a few tins of beans at 35p each. That makes 2 portions (sometimes three) of stir-fry and soup with bread as a side. On good weeks we add mince to make a savoury meat meal that also stretches to 3 meals (for 2 people). We never eat junk food but make an effort to cook fresh and healthy food every night. It can be done with a bit of planning and effort. :)
It's not necessarly a question of money. There was a moment in my life, my mother was a single mother (my father died) she had to find an underpaid job (she had no qualification) with a lot of overtime to keep our boat floating. I never eat so much junk food in my life. Not because of money, but because when my widow mother had work her 10 hours a day, having to deal with her mourning, her kids, our sorrow, our homeworks, the chores, the paperworks, you'll understand that she wasn't really in the mood for cooking. It's not only a tax on poor people, it's also a tax on single parents who work a lot and working women with a partner not involve in chores.
That’s not a weeks worth, you just said enough for 2 -3 meals for 2 people. The average household has 4 people. My kids go through $15-$20 worth of apples a week. Then us about $5 in bananas, $2 in carrots, $4 in grapes, $3 strawberries, $4.50 for frozen mango, $2 tinned pineapple, $14 potatoes etc. Instead let’s go the junk food way. In a week I can buy 2-3 bags of frozen chips and powdered potato for $8, multi packs of chips and biscuits for under $10, a jar of pasta sauce for about $1.80 (high in sugar and salt) and a packet of dry pasta for $1. That is much cheaper than the healthier options.
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Foxxy. Bananas are 50 cents per pound and apples approximately $1 per pound. You're telling me that your family eats 10 pounds of bananas and 20 pounds of apples per week? , Everyone here is giving excuse after excuse as to why they can't eat healthier. At the end of the day, it's your body and your (long term) health. You've gotta want it enough that you're willing to put in an effort. If you're content with eating a poor diet then really, no one can stop you. Your kids don't have that same luxury. At the very least you should be making an effort to teach your children about maintaining a healthy lifestyle (even if you're not prepared to model one) and you should be providing them with the right tools to succeed. Anything less is a disservice to your children.
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Good on ya, B! I don't understand why people voted you down
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No we should NOT be subsidizing. Period.
Let's not forget when the electricity gets cut off because we can't afford to pay it and have to rely on per-packaged meals and fast food dollar menus. Been there. Done that. :-/
Or when your appliances break and you can't afford to get them fixed or replaced. I went without an oven for almost a decade!
Ovens are way overrated. When I got my first spot in the Caribbean, none of the places we looked at had an oven. I just got a $30 toaster oven and realized I can bake anything in there the same way as a full sized oven. Unless you’re roasting an animal, it shouldn’t be an issue.
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Wait, you couldn't get your oven repaired for 10 years??! What the??
Being poor is expensive. If the initial outlay for dinner for a work week might be 34$ (making each meal under 7$), but if you only have 20$, you can't buy for the week, so you buy "cheap" food--for the day. Just like bus tokens--if a month's pass is $83--that's about 2$ a trip, but if you're poor, you have to buy individual tokens, or weekly tokens, and you will end up paying far more.
Same for many people who are not able to rent a flat in France, because they don't have a good referee and/or enough money to pay a deposit. They end up living in hotels and, thus, spending much more than they would were they able to rent a place. Of course, not having a permanent address seriously limits their access to the job market, which makes the situation much worse for them. Ridiculous.
this is the same conundrum for renting versus buying, here in the us. my small nuclear family is finally moving back home after my husband an di have finished school. and while i think long term we'll be ok, it's galling that we will have to RENT for $1500/month as opposed to if we JUST HAD A FOOT in the door, we could pay a mortgage for like $900 in a similarly sized house. and yeah, ive looked at the cheaper options, im not only considering swanky fancy apartments or nice new houses.
Ueda easy
And if you're late paying bills you get charged $10 but if you have the money to pay them in full instantly you get a 25% discount, ffs!!! You cant afford to buy when there are sales on, you'll never get discounts for being a "preferred" customer etc etc. & because you buy cheap &/or 2nd hand LOTS of stuff breaks/dies very quickly.
Imagine the worst. We have inflation. Can you guess what thing rise it's price more? You got it. Food and medicaments. The poor are practically forced to live the day and you can see more people asking for a meal on community kitchens (don't know the actual name , sorry). On that places maybe they give them a warm meal and a fruit but not the actual Jeremy's menu, of course.
oh my god yesssssss this is sooooo trueeeeeeeeeeeeeee. the other extreme of this is that rich people often get shit for free.
I can't figure out why you were downvoted--especially your comment about housing
I am trying to learn to cook healthy and the biggest obstacle for me is that I cannot afford to make mistakes and have to throw food out, and I also can't afford to try new things that we may end up hating and having to throw out. What if I don't make couscous right or my family won't eat it? How can I essentially gamble my little bit of money away on an unknown food when there are all the box and frozen dinners that I know how to make and know my family can and will eat? Even buying fruits and vegetables can be risky because I don't know how to pick out the "good" stuff and often bring home mealy apples, rotten avocadoes, etc. Sorry for the rant, this is just a constant source of stress.
Nikki, I don't know where you live but if you can, ask the produce person for advice on how to pick the good stuff! They work with it all day long, and they're happy to share their knowledge. Hugs, and best of luck to you!
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The mealy apples are still good to use in pie. The rotten avocado I'd take back to the store.
I mean this may be useless but food pantry might help you spread your budget if you just need a little extra while you work it out?
Nikki, I'm a single mother and really related to your comment! I've found that making complicated meals can be both a waste of time and money. Try going for easier recipes like doing a taco night, where you build your own. I grow herbs on my deck and make a mean pesto sauce using the basil I've grown, pine nuts (buy them in the baking aisle- always cheaper) olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. My parents gave me a black and decker bread machine and it's been a life changer! You can make a delicious loaf of bread with 3-4 basic ingredients (flour, yeast, water) all at the flick of a switch.
But box frozen dinners are so fucking EXPENSIVE. I had so many months where buying one of those dinners was all I wanted but I couldn’t afford it and had to get tofu and canned green beans instead. Frozen prepackaged food is so damn expensive. An avocado is $1.50. Salt, pepper and a slice of bread with that avocado is a $2 lunch. No way is that more expensive than a frozen meal. And there’s no leftover avocado.
I like to cut the tofu (I always get hard tofu) into cubes and sauté it in soy sauce. Also, I will sometimes use a single egg and then scramble the tofu into it, which stretches the egg use out considerably.
where do you live? not judging too hard but in the us MOST produce you can usually get a majority of good quality right out of the bin. and avocados are too expensive for me to experiment with either lol
Sex Bench above made some good points......................................Sex Bench?????
Am I reading it well ? Pizza Junk Food ? Im italian, what the hell.
Most pizza bought from in store or takeaway joints is laden with salt and sugar. So yes junk food.
Kamil, you will be very vey surprised by how much hidden sugar is in almost everything. Pizza dough needs sugar for the yeast to feed off and activate it. Most of the sugar is in the pizza sauce though. A slice of frozen pizza contains on average 5grams of sugar.
Im missing the point. You can buy very healty food spending less than junk food, as long as you're that minimum organized to set up a decent salad. Or pasta or whatever. Certainly I know, there are canned food already cooked, soups and whatever and of course they're ready to eat, with lots of ingredients of doubtful origin.
Sugar in pizza, since when? They are unhealthy though: mostly bread and fatty cheese. Italian pizza is a bit better -- thin base, nowhere as much cheese -- but still something that's better not eaten every day.
I hear ya! But I guess even a salad can be junk food if you really try hard. Add loads of salt, sugar, and bad kinds of fat to the dressing - et voilà !
Using a bottle of pre-made caesar dressing has this effect.
You actually dont need to try hard to make a salad junk food. Just add some dressing,mayo or other stuff and thats it ;)
Taxing junk and fast food is not the solution to make people eat healthier. Making good and healthy food cheaper is a better solution.
Good and healthy food NEED to be cooked! A lot dont know or care to learn to cook! Others dont have time so they eat shit and blame the stores they dont provide cheap food.
OT, but I read a really interesting thing a while back in regards to homeless people eating junk food. What homeless people soon learn is that the most important thing is calories, not nutrition because they have to LIVE, and to do that they need calories to burn. So a bag of chips is 'better' for them than an apple that might have all of 80 calories. Really interesting perspective.
Every school, k-12 should offer healthy and nutritious breakfast and lunch. For free, if the family can not afford it. There is enough food and money to make sure no one goes hungry, especially children.
Good thing is that several schools around the world are now giving free meals for the children. The nutrition value is not necessary the best possible in all those free meals but at least it is still better than nothing, especially if the child is from a poor family. I am from Finland and here all schools have had free meals for over 70 years now and the nutrition is also OK with those meals.
Spent half my life on welfare, this is bullshit.
Many people 'make too much' for welfare but not enough to pay all bills comfortably. Just because you lucked out does not mean everyone else does.
Also depends on the state. In Arizona, for a family that consists of a parent and child, you have to make less than $20k a year to get any state aid. Including food stamps, help with utility bills and Medicaid.
Did you have depression, two small kids to take care of and an ex trying to murder you?
Everyone is different I guess. Some cope, some don't.
It seems this woman's need for junk food as a child was completely an issue with her mad mother exhausting her dad and not because of poverty. Cooking really doesn't take any more TIME than waiting in the takeaway for someone else to make it. Cost-wise, that probably depends on what you make and what country you were raised in. Here you can get 1.5kg of carrots for $2.50, a tin of tomatoes for $1, loaf of bread $1. There's vege soup and bread for dinner right there, not using all those carrots or a whole loaf, so around $4 for a family meal. I don't know of any takeaways you can get in my country, to feed a family, for less than that. Cooking IS cheaper, but the circumstances people may find themselves in otherwise may well make them feel disinclined/unable to do so, and that is understandable.
I grew up being poor, in Russia of the 1990s. I can say that we couldn't even AFFORD junk food. Pizza? That's something I first had in the 2000s. Even today it's cheaper to buy some groceries and cook a simple meal yourself than to eat out in McDonalds or KFC. I'd say junk food is more of a cultural thing.
I live in Greece. All the healthy stuff here are cheaper than the unhealthy. Legumes, seasonal vegetables, rice pasta, fish (fresh) like sardines and anchovies, seasonal fruit etc all are cheaper than pizza, burgers, sausages, fatty meats and the lot. With the cost of a take away for four you can cook four meals. With the cost of supermarket pizza you can cook at least two meals. With the cost of two MacDonald cheeseburgers you can cook a pot of lentils for 4 or five people. Yet, many people who struggle with money prefer to buy and eat unhealthy stuff. I don't know if there is an explanation to this...
Vegetables and fruit are needlessly expensive--maybe because they are imported? Whereas Greece has an amazing climate...
The explanation is laziness! :)
What this lady shares on social media is not about being poor at all.... What she describes is parental neglect due to mental health. Talking purely from a financial point of view it is always cheaper to cook yourself food bought in bulk rather than the discount section. When you really are poor you can not afford junk food from the discount section. People who were really poor know that buying in bulk is muuuuuuuch cheaper. Bulk cheap rice, cheap dried crackers, bulk cheap onions and potatoes, flour, sugar, butter, cheap chicken every now and then, cod (or whichever fish is the cheapest in your region) apples, simple salad and where I grew up pork was very cheap too. As a kid I never had salmon, steaks, cereals, exotic fruits. And you know what? Who cares... I do not feel I missed out it is such a shallow thing...
Yes, but buying in bulk can waste the food. There's just my husband and myself and we buy foods we can freeze in bulk, but produce is too expensive and goes bad quickly for just two people. It's a good idea for large families, but if you're poor, bulk stores cost membership fees and those are considered a luxury.
Hm, never had problems with rice, potatoes or apples going bad. It is a given that you can not buy 10 kg of paprika or tomatoes. If your potatoes go bad make sure to put them in a dark place :) Also just to make it clear when I talk about bulk I do not mean specialised bulk stores where you need membership. This lady is from the UK. In Europe you have multiple sizes of packages. From small packaging of let us say 250 gram rice to 5 kg rice . This is available in many stores.
But you need money to buy in bulk. A lot of people don't have the money.
On YouTube there is a channel called Epic Mealtime. They make very unhealthy meals, then scoff it all up. It's purely for entertanment. Jamie 'effin' Oliver was a guest on one episode. This was "just before" all this sugar tax business. Conclusion: He's a fecking hypocrite!
A few other things to consider that I seldom see mentioned: people living in poverty may not have a refrigerator, in which to store perishables or frozen vegetables. They may not have a stove or an oven - they may be doing well to have a hot plate. They might not have any cookware; pots, pans, spatulas, spoons, knives, mixing bowls, cutting boards - they may have a counter next to a basin in a cheap hotel room, with a couple of plastic plates and plastic forks and knives. It seems in all these food virtue discussions that the minimum of a working kitchen is assumed, and all that's needed is putting healthy food in it instead of junk food. That unconscious assumption reveals the privilege involved. Poor is poorer than that.
I think that children should be taught how to cook healthy from cheap ingredients at school. Also, actions as this one should be promoted more : https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/gy4wxb/jack-monroe-tin-can-cook-food-banks
Hmm, neither pizza or fried chicken are cheap as also many other types of fast or pre-made food. I think some people get carried away when they consider only organic, made from scratch food packed with vegetables and fruit is healthy. Most of daily ration should come from pasta, rice, potatoes, legumes with meat not necessary for every day and dairy not necessary at all. Green vegetable such as cabbage does not cost a fortune and fruit are not necessary as long as there are some form of vegetable available through the day. This kind of food is not expensive neither time consuming to make. I grown up on this and yes it was bland and cheap and todays kids would not want to eat it - but if you have a choice of what to eat based on taste, than believe me - you are not poor.
I think obviously kids should eat more veg, but it is very easy to say that a pack of tomatoes costs the same as a frozen pizza, but when you have nothing, you need to make sure yours kids are getting calories, and you won't get calories from a pack or tomatoes
I agree with her about fixing those other problems first, like minimum wage and health care. But she’s wrong about food. Cheap food doesn’t have to be junk food. And that junk pizza isn’t as filling or cheap as a bag of lentils or canned vegetables. She never even rebutted why she wouldn’t accept canned vegetables. I cannot tell you how many nights I ate lentils and rice with raisins when I was starting my business after working 12 hour days seven days a week. I had to have had it for breakfast lunch and dinner and drank nothing but tap water with lemon juice. I was fine. Those boxed pizzas and shit are way more expensive.
supermarket banans are about 10p each. Cheap, filling, nutricious and don't need preparing. Not a whole meal, but a useful snack. Carrots. the same - can be peeled and eaten raw. Root veg is cheap and makes a simple stew. It's more effort to prepare, but once everything is cut up and in the pot, it can be left to itself - older chldren can help. A pack of root veg for £1 and storecupboard ingedients (stock cube, dried herbs, tomato paste) for £1. That's 3 to 4 good portions for £2. Cheaper than 3 burgers.
I can tell you right now that pizza is much more filling than lentils and veggies.
Jamie ‘thousand plus people lost their job because I got to big for my boots’ Oliver needs to STFU.
Spill the tea! What happened?
His chain of restaurants went into administration a couple of months ago because plainly put, people didn't like them.
It’s not just the UK and her point can be made for many countries. In the US, I grew up poor. Mom had 2-3 jobs at 1 time, dad was in assisted living in another state from a stroke when he was 45. He didn’t recover enough to go back to work, help pay support, etc. If it wasn’t for cheap, throw together food we wouldn’t have eaten. Change needs to happen yes, but unless systems in place to help ppl like us are barely scraping by or not for everyone, how can that trickle down to the poor, elderly or disabled? Taxing food should be the last thing to change not the first. Hope this made sense it did in my head lol
I definitely agree. I can't always cook because of seizures and medical bills along with expensive medications don't allow a lot of money to be spent on healthier foods.
There is also the problem of education, sadly a lot of people just don't know how to cook! I'm from a country where basic ingredients are affordable, but some people never even chopped an onion in their life, so when you work so much and are so mentally tired of scrapping every bit of money you don't have the energy to try new dishes or learn to and you buy pre-made food :/
I love Jamie Oliver to an extent. He has the right thinking, we do need to give our kids better foods but the lady’s post is right even here in the U.S. Healthy food is expensive. While I don’t give my kids junk and we do use a ton of fresh produce in our meals it cost me over $50 a week IN PRODUCE, forget meat or dairy or anything else we need. And honestly if I only spend $50 on produce it still doesn’t last the whole week. And we are a family of 3. There have been many times I’ve had to choose sending my youngest to preschool or buying healthy foods because the cost of those two things are out of control. You wanna make a change? Charge an arm and a leg for junk food and severely lower the cost of healthy food.
The lower class wage workers are among the hardest workers in the entire country. I couldn't do two full time jobs back to back in a single day. I don't know how people do it. The US funds defense far far more than other countries. If that was lowered just a bit and the funds reallocated towards giving people food and healthcare, the US would be in a much better place.
Food bank usage is at an all time high here in the UK but hell let's make food more expensive! That should help! Sounds like sensible FOOD advice from a guy who's chain of FOOD restaurants has just gone belly up...
This is just another of a long line of things that have recently been suggested/put in place in the UK to kick the down trodden further into the gutter. It doesn't matter our opinion, the internet gives us a voice but in the end no body hardly listens to that voice and the fat cats just keep getting fatter while the poor get poorer. That is the depressing reality of the world today. Greed before lives.
If you are what youeat that makes me cheap, fast and easy
It’s cheaper and easier. End of story.
He's a D!ck.years ago he said single working Mum's were "selfish" because the didn't have the time to cook their healthy meals...Oh,dear we are not all blessed with $$$ or a "House Frau" ,like he has.
I understand Jamie Oliver's intention of promoting a healthier lifestyle, but he's honestly being a douchebag about it.
Whenever i read the healthy meals for under £2 or whatever they are always based on the premise you have a decent cooker, a well stocked pantry and all the cooking implements in the world. When you are actually poor you don't have a good supply of oils, herbs spices and other "basics" to cook with. You may only have a microwave and a few plates. Fix poverty (No middle class tax cuts, re-invest in social housing, uprate the minimum wage etc) rather than punish the poor.
Lets get real - the only things Oliver and his fellow travellers are interested in is their own careers, the amount of exposure they can get in the media and the number of tv and books they can generate. Any topic would be good for them but as food and eating are so emotionally charged its a double whammy for them. I find it truly sickening that government and media listens to such self serving arses but ignores the real life experiences of people such as Cara's, you know the people who actually know what its like to live on a totally restricted budget year after year
This is an extreme case. Cases like this exist but are not the 'norm'. Granted everyone's story is different but often when people refer to the poor they refer to the low income families. Many of these do have a budget for food IF they spend wisely but they choose to buy crap. Jamie Oliver is an idiot and not in touch with reality with half of what he says and does BUT fruit and veg and 'healthy' stuff has become a lot cheaper than when I was a kid. However, I think families like this that are genuinely poor and suffering do slip through the net because we have far too many families that are actually lazy, choose to have too many kids, can't be bothered to work etc and instead make a lot of noise so they can get benefits and other stuff - these loud mouth lazy waste of space people prevent the help reaching the right people...this is the problem.
Here's an idea, instead of making crappy food more expensive, find a way to make decent food more affordable!!!
yeah, what she is saying makes sense. basically....poor people arent JUST choosing junk food from an equally priced (and equally time invested) range of options. so to just make them more expensive doesnt make "healthier" foods more affordable.
Somebody needs to tell Jamie Oliver that his frozen meals from the grocery store are disgusting and inedible, and that he shouldn't be trying to dictate what other people eat.
Let's say for a kind of sorta devil advocacy kind of thing that poor people are like the bad cliche portrayed in the worst kind of way.... I knew a dude on the poor side once... he grew his own stuff but... they had a house for starters and that helps a lot. So technically worst case they could grow stuff but having a owned house that ain't going anywhere is a huge start for some people as is. Know a dude who is a real fucking hero had to move a few times cause money issues or landlord issue don't know was none of my business but I digress so then he lost his last parent and has to look after his younger siblings and pay rent.
The reverse is the case here in Nigeria, the unhealthy stuff are astronomically more expensive than healthy, agricultural produce. Probably because they are more often than not imported.
Jamie Oliver is against pizza, yet his restaurant chain serves pizza. I guess that's why he's going out of business.
It's crazy! They can stop the advertising without taxing food. It happened with cigarettes, and here in the US they stopped advertising sugary foods when kids' programming is on years ago.
Oliver can suck a big old carrot size dick.
Why not make healthy food cheaper instead of unhealthy food more expensive. Or both. Healthy cheaper while unhealthy more expensive. Win win in my humble opinion. By the way: I know how it is to have not a lot of money.
They're just too lazy to cook a vegetable.
There is something realy weird going on when growing a plant, sell it to humans, and have the prep it for eating, is more expensive then: growing many plants, feed them to animals untill it's grown enough, turn the animal into consumption meat, have some fast food place prep, and then still sell it for a profit for less then the former.
I would love to hear what Jamie Oliver thinks about her response thread. It seems if he had replied, it would have been mentioned....The problem we have in the States is that low income areas tend to be "food deserts" where there is no place to purchase fresh fruits and veggies. All that is available, for miles at times, are convenience stores that only supply processed junk food.
F. jO can’t put up valid reasons, the n he needs to shut up. Why not help the poor, make gardens and grow veggies? Better than raising prices! A packet of seeeds is much cheaper, Mr.. O. .....
So unfair that system. IF people manage to be in a place they finally can buy more healthy food; their first incomes has to go to dentalwork and other issues related with only acces to unhealthy food and too little vitamins for a while. It can become a rabbit hole. I don't think it will be a terrible idea to make unhealthy food more expensive; but you can't do that before making sure that food is for some people the only way of survival.
There's also the fact that in many inner cities, people live in "food deserts" where there are no supermarkets and the nearby food stores are 7-11's, QuickieMarts, and other places that carry little or no produce and dairy products, have a limited selection of prepared foods and charge a fortune for it. If you don't have a car (as is the case for many city-dwellers), you're stuck with what's in the neighborhood.
Yeah, well off foodies are amongst the most arrogant, self righteous holier than thou people I have ever met.
Agree 100%! A (sometimes) starving artist here - there were weeks when I could only afford pasta and rice, which are not very healthy but cheap and will fill your stomach quick. Also, very good point about the depression and overall tiredness - when you are trying to make ends meet and always stressed about money and finding work, the last thing you want to do is prepare a meal from scratch. Obesity used to be a sign of the rich - they could afford meat and regular meals. Now it is a sign of the poor - who can only afford cheap unhealthy food. The way to solve this is no taxing unhealthy food - it is solving the housing crisis, raising the minimum wage and making childcare more affordable.
This lady is telling the true reality and thank you for writing this.I have been there and my mum and dad were so poor too trying to bring up 4 of us kids.I recall a lot of the times we had to eat jam sandwiches or dripping on bread,sugar on bread n butter..or starve..the rare times we had meals my mum would try her best to make a good balanced meal with potatoes .pie crust with mince and veg..and we would have fry ups with any leftovers from sunday dinner etc.,jamie oliver is a hypocrite going on about healthy eating when some of his stuff is more laden with sugar and fat!!! he wants to just shut the hell up
And we were all skinny not fat probably because in those days we burnt a lot of energy being outside instead of being on a computer a lot..but i do think it may not be a healthy start but had no choice or either starve
In the US we also have what are known as food deserts, where there are no places nearby to buy fresh foods, so the people in those areas eat canned fruits and vegetables, or whatever has the longest shelf life. But what I really want to mention are people like Oliver, who do no research with the people whose lives they’re trying to affect. He hasnt had any convos with them about what they actually need, or want. This is how you know it’s virtue signaling ,when people proclaim from on high, making decisions for others without consulting them, as if these people were small children who didn’t know better.
I used to like Jamie Oliver until he got too stuck on himself and his own opinions. Also, it's hard to by nutritious foodz when you have no money to buy nutritious foodz. He needs to either sit down and shut up or actually understand the circumstances of the people he's preaching at.
Maybe social services instead of spending time in useless programs, should focus in teaching poor families, how to make the best of their meagre money, and even saving and even including children in it, from hook and last moment sales in supermarkets, stores, local markets or directly from the producer, how to preserve, dehydrate or freeze, for later on use, to pot produce veggies or weekends gatherings of edible wild seeds, plants, leaves and flowers, how to recycle, from clothes to bottles.
Social Services in Chile in the times of President Jorge Alessandri an followed by Eduardo Frei Montalva, (between nineteen sixties and seventies) did this with very satisfactory results.
Surely there are better ways to get people to eat healthy, lets stop making it out to be just a poor/rich divide, lets stop punishing the poor who are working and trying to give their kids the best life they can. It is much cheaper to cook food in bulk, so why don't secondary schools open up their canteens a few evenings a week, find volunteers to cook healthy, tasty meals for large groups. You could even get the older (14+) kids doing the cooking with supervision. It would be a great way to keep kids fed and healthy, teach them valuable life skills, give them a safe place to stay while parents are still working yet not cost the world. They schools could grow some of the food they cook, with councils providing allotments if the schools are short on land to grow on.
I'm disabled and constantly wonder how I'm going to pay my rent each year when it goes up and my disability doesn't.
Though I do agree with the reasoning, and not only applicable to Great Britain but certainly also to the US, I do believe that choosing water over soft drinks is good for both health and wallet. IMHO I think advertising for soft drinks should be treated the same way we got rid of tobacco advertisements. I live in a southern European country where fresh fruits and vegetables are available in an absolute abundance all year round, but, surprisingly enough, a lot of children and young adults do not really know how to feed themselves properly. Cola instead of water, fast food instead of lentils or beans. For about a century, the expected life span has been going up, up, up, and now I think it is going to go down, partly due to too low food standards.
My parents did not have money when I grew up (Sweden, 80's). Wish meant fairly healthy food. Candy, processed food etc was too expensive. Cheese was a luxury. We basically grew up on homegrown potato, moose and fish. All sourced by my parents without much of supermarkets in the way. Thing is, that sort of thing may work if you live out in the countryside. If you - like more then half of the worlds population - live in a city, growing your own food and hunting/fiahing is probably not an option. The other thing is that you need to have the energy to get those things. It takes a heck of a lot of time to harvest your own food.
I understand Jamie Oliver's intention of promoting a healthier lifestyle, but he's being a grade-A douchebag about it.
The fact they're even listening to this knob and his ridiculous ideas only adds more weight to the idea that the UK's government has really become a joke.
It kind of angers me.
Good for her! Jamie Oliver is not the only person to have promoted this awful idea that punishes poor people by raising prices on the only food they can afford. The idea has been widely discussed on this side of the pond, in the U.S. Get a load of this mind-boggling study on this topic, from the U.S. National Institutes of Health: TAXING JUNK FOOD TO COUNTER OBESITY. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828689/ Since the NIH is a government agency, the study was paid for with OUR TAX MONEY. Summary of findings: "Small excise taxes are likely to yield substantial revenue but are unlikely to affect obesity rates. High excise taxes are likely to have a direct impact on weight in at-risk populations but are less likely to be politically palatable or sustainable." >:-(
Not buying it. I eat junk food all the damn time. ALL THE TIME. If it ain't fried I ain't eating it. I'm 6'3" 148lbs. Note: I work construction 12hrs a day so my calorie intake vs energy output is.....I'm in need of more junk food.
You should learn about statistics, outliers and anecdotal information. Your mind will be blown.
Pretty sure all statistics will show that heavy manual work (like Tyler here explained) burns much more calories then sedentary work. Even if he would have a super high metabolism in an office job - being an outlier in statistics does not mean it is not true. Statistics would blow your mind as well I see...
If the government controls your healthcare, they are justified in controlling everything you do. Progressivism is " I can run your life better than you"
So let's have nameless corporations control everything. That's the ticket! I mean if you can't make profit off of someone's sickness what is the point of all this anyway. People will pay a lot of money not to die.
Sure, dying because you can't afford your diabetes medication is surely preferable to not dxing because the evil, evil government makes sure everyone has good healthcare.
I've never understood why taxing the poor even more would make them better off. Taxing what can be had cheaply rather than reducing the cost of healthy options is clearly counter-productive. If you ask somebody with two or three jobs, all at minimum wage, just so that they can pay the rent and bills then food becomes what you can afford. It's also what you can make in the time between getting home from the low-paid admin job and going out to the bar job, which gets you home at midnight. Fortunately, when I was a kid and my Mum was doing this, I was able to cook, as were my siblings. We did cook from scratch and we had jobs to help buy better food. In my case I worked on the market and brought home veg. Jamie Oliver is well-intentioned but simply doesn't understand - yes, he is a middle-class knob.
Alex, the poor aren't taxed more. Yes, everyone pays a percentage of taxes on the everyday items they buy (in BC we pay 12%) But in terms of annual taxes, you pay based on your annual income. In Canada, some of the people on welfare assistance don't pay taxes at all as they don't make enough to meet the lowest tax bracket requirement.
Says the tosser who never held a real job for a single day in his life and how many kids with ridiculous names does he have yet? He is a moron who thinks he's god's gift to food... Fight to make healthy food CHEAPER instead, then you'd be doing something meaningful for a change....
Life/circs can mean it's your medication and running water and a roof OR fresh produce. You can work 2 jobs at 30 hours a week to still not make ends meet for rent, health care coverage, utilities, let alone, oh, y'know... FOOD. At all. Of any kind. I was blessed. I grew up poor but we lived rural. W ecould farm, fish, hunt, and only needed stores for flour/salt/etc., almost like "pioneers" in one sense. And we were still poor. Hungry, cold, and living on second-hand and luck sometimes. So.... Yeah. Dare Jamie Oliver to last a *week* like most people live...
Her story is a minority. The problem the nation has is families buying cheap, low quality food and eating loads of it......resulting in malnourished obesity!
This women made some great points. There are a many reasons as to why people make poorer food choices and the 3 top reasons are 1. Time poor, more and more families have 2 parents working, have extra curricular out of school activities for kids etc that they turn to convenience. Wether it is takeaway or pre packaged foods. 2. Money, it is far cheaper to buy unhealthy foods than healthy nutritious foods. For example a box of nuggets and bag of frozen chips costs $5.40aud but if I made them at home with hidden veg and no added salt etc it would cost roughly $12.20aud. I have attempted a few times to make my own spaghetti bolognese sauce from scratch and all the fresh ingredients needed cost me over $15 and that doesn’t include the mince or pasta. To buy 2 jars of pasta sauce it costs me $3.55. and 3. Sugar is addictive and is often compared to being as addictive as cocaine. It’s all to do with the release of dopamine. There are of course more reasons but these are the main ones.
And those prices are assuming you already have the spices and pots and pans!
I was trying to say I don't get why you were downvoted but made a boo boo.
Don't
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Hmm, her argument doesn't make sense to me at all. Poor people need access to affordable and simple food. That absolutely doesn't mean that it needs to be unhealthy food. We need to make bad food expensive and good food cheaper. Also, fighting bad food that KILLS people and the environment doesn't mean we can't fight poverty at the same time. And no, I'm not blaming anyone. And I feel for her and anyone in her situation. I just don't buy her logic.
I'm going to get soo many downvotes for this lol but as a medical professional, I'm seeing a connection between her current her frame of mind as a result of a traumatic childhood. The whole diet thing aside, I think this woman's early life experiences have impacted her way of thinking as an adult.
Surprise you got upvotes! ^-^
Cats999 -
Cats999 haha
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Along with a tax on unhealthy food there needs to be a switch on subsidies.
It should be the other way around. The healthy food should be made cheaper instead of the unhealthy food more expensive. Making any food MORE expensive isn't going to help poor families.
When I was a kid in the 1980s and 1990s, junk food WAS more expensive, I don't even remember eating it that often other than maybe as a special treat on a road trip or something, and even then we usually brought real food with us. At some point in my teens, so late 1990s, I started noticing that junk food was getting cheaper, while real food was more expensive, or maybe they just jacked the prices on real food faster, I don't know. I DO know this, most major junk food/processed food manufacturers are owned by the same companies that happily sell us diabetes and blood pressure meds and the like, so we can "manage" but not cure our health issues...
You don't need to cook an entire roast chicken meal from scratch in order to provide a healthy, nutritious meal, especially with kids! Grilled cheeses, veggies and dip, avocado on toast, homemade hash browns and scrambled eggs... I've learnt as a Mom that when it comes to feeding kids the presentation and creativity level is KEY. Turn bananas into dolphins by splitting the top part to make a mouth and draw a pair of eyes. I'll buy a box of blueberries in the summer, when they're the cheapest and then freeze them. I gave them a cool name: "ice dots" and now my daughter can't get enough of "ice dots". I can't speak for this girl's specific situation but in my opinion (and in my experience) there's really no excuse for giving your kids frozen meals, sugary cereals and McDonald's crapola every other day. You can easily prepare a much healthier meal at home for the same cost. You've got to be creative and you've got to be willing!
Continued 2; All of this is before you take into consideration peoples differences in person. Do they have allergies, conditions which cause them to be unable to eat certain food groups? Are there mental blocks such as autism in play? General dislikes of food and alternatives are too expensive. This post gave you a small glance into another's world, a world shared by a large portion of people and like others you've failed to truly empathise with the wide range of situations that cause your solution to be fantasy. And as rightfully said, if processed/junk food increases in price, that's a lot of hungry people, because we can't afford to go into the next price range and there's nothing left for us down there.
continued; Being creative and picking the right foods for a balanced diet aren't the issue, we all know, and see every day what's the correct choice. It's just not our choice. I've seen posts of people trying to calculate current food costs in shop saying "see look you buy these things" They either cause diet issues or provide a perfectly balanced meal plan which can be sustained for half the time before the next paycheck. because they forget the other expenses in life and how little we actually get as income. But it's all fine right? Because my weekly income went up by around £1 this April "Yay".... covers a good third of my increase to weekly gas costs. lets just ignore the other inflations because that's already a depressing comparison. I have £2 less to spend each paycheck on food because of gas alone.
Trust me, it's not mcdonalds and sugary food (we hope it was that good) . And as she rightly put, it's not just about buying the food, it's the mental state behind the person has been effected and oppressed. If I could afford to buy any food I wanted, trust me, I wouldn't be getting my intake from £1 ready meals. Even when you buy from reduced sections you can't afford to maintain whats required for a healthy diet when on benefits or low income. The choice of foods you gave are an example to how disconnected you are from this issue. vegetables are too expensive. You are then limited to cans which are either horrible in taste or tasteless, also effecting mental state in wanting to put the effort into cooking the meal. Not only that but you forget storage, do you think we have giant fridges and freezers to store prepared food, No. and living alone makes that worse, because if you try buy bulk, which more cost effective, everything goes out of date before you can finish it.
right. Let a single mom spend another hour (at the very least) on cooking DAILY after she gets back home from 12 hours of work. Not even talking about avocados that are expensive. It's not about your cREatIvITy with food for kids. It's about food itself. I didn't need any presentation for my food as a kid. I was just happy to have it in my poor family.
Now get deppression and work 12h/day on a minimum wage job and then get back to us and tell how bloody easy it is.
Advocado's are expensive and for hipsters...
But then the rich can't hate the poor! How dare you take that away from them!
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It's awesome watching you twats whine. We're poor: reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. "Advocates" for the poor: reeeeeeeeeeeeee.
One of the problems with Oliver's proposition is that it is punitive (the stick as opposed to the carrot). He is going to make eating harder for the poor, the only people who need help. He should instead create a subsidy for fresh vegetables and fruit, making them affordable.
Yael, I live in Australia and bananas are $3-$5 a kilo which is about 5-6 bananas (depending on size). We go through on average 3 bags of apples a week at $3.50-$5 a bag. Fortunately I am lucky and can afford to buy nutritional foods but I am not ignorant enough to know that is not the case for everyone. A family tray of lasagne is $10 but to buy all the ingredients yourself to feed the same amount of people is double that. Lasagne sheets are $3, mince is $7 and that is not including vegies, lasagne sauce, cheese etc. It ends up being double the amount. Meat pie you can buy a 6 pack for $5-$6 butbto make the same amount it will cost $3 for puff pastry, $7 for mince, $1 worth of flour and butter to make the short crust pastry, and then add things like onion, gravy, garlic etc. 2 tins of soup is $3 but to buy ingredients to make soup is triple the price. For tacos $7 for mince, then add tomatoes $2, lettuce $2-$3, cheese $4, add seasonings and spices, taco shells or wraps etc when you can buy 3 premade home brand pizzas for $9.99. Also if everyone can afford what you said then there would be no need for food banks or other charities to help feed people who can’t afford food, let alone nutritious food.
Yale, I live next to Australia, in New Zealand, we have similar currencies, cultures, and food pricing problems. As foxxy said, to buy ingredients to make a meal outweighs the cost of the same meal premade. We are isolated nations with a huge distance for food to travel to reach us. Even the food we produce is overpriced. A few years ago, milk cost more than petrol, and our main export is dairy. As to your working comment, you have no idea what other factors people have going on. And as foxxy said she can afford nutritious food, she is merely pointing out not all people can. I don't have a job, I'm a single mum. What do you think. And here's what you didn't know: I have spina bifida, almost died two years ago, take 13 different medications per day to survive, half my digestive tract is missing. All my energy goes into raising my son. Should I be judged?
Lauren Caswell, you know what also sucks. Australia has a lot of wonderful produce yet we send a lot of our top quality stuff overseas (especially meat) and we get charged ridiculous prices. I went to buy a roast beef as a treat the other day and the cheapest was approx $17.00 for a tiny, pissy little one. I also treated us to some marinated pork ribs and for 2 racks it cost me $39, I will never be buying that again. But even for the cheaper cuts is expensive. We may have better wages but our general cost of living is outrageous. In Adelaide (where I live), we pay the highest rates of electricity in the world. And Adelaide pays the highest water rates in Australia. Petrol/diesel is fluctuating between $1.20-$1.80 a litre and just these few things add a lot of the extra costs to our food.
Yael, Read my comments properly. I have already stated that we can afford to feed our kids nutritional food. But it’s not the case for many families. Also I can’t get a job I have 2 kids with disabilities that have regular appts, I don’t drive, I have no qualifications, references or skills and I have some health issues of my own. Unfortunately no one will hire me because I have to be picky with the hours I work due to constant appts. Speech therapy, Occupational therapy, physio, psychology, paediatrician, GP, etc just to name a few. I can’t just get any job because I have a hip deformity (bilateral coxa profunda and coxa vulga), I can’t sit for long periods and I can’t stand for long periods so I need to find a balance. There is lack of jobs where I am and because I have no skills or anything and I am 32 it makes it even harder. I also don’t drive so because of my kids regular appts I need a job close by. But again we can afford nutritious food, but it wasn’t always the case.
Foxxy- as an American fortunate enough to visit your gorgeous country, I was amazed (jaw to the floor) at the high cost of groceries. A morning run to McDonalds for orange juice and biscuits and coffee was outrageous. My children were about 11 and 13 at the time and being from California, they were used to an abundance of fresh fruits and veggies. I'd go to the farmers market twice a week and we consumed mass quantities of fruits and vegetables. I had to tell them No while in Australia. No banana this morning. No avocado on that toast... It was just too expensive and we were blessed just to be there but we saved for a long time.... I can't imagine not having access to cheap, fresh produce.
None of this is healthy, but good point.
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Afterthought, you mentioned in another thread you have the luxury of being a stay at home mom since your husband is the breadwinner. Perhaps you get a part time job so you can afford to feed your children a beneficial diet.
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Like I said earlier, at the end of the day it's your life, your body and your health on the line. I'm a single mother so I'm aware of the costs involved in running a household. I strongly believe that as parents we must provide the tools for our children to succeed, even if you're unwilling to model it yourself. I stand by my comment that as a parent, disregarding the importance of a healthy diet and an active lifestyle is doing a disservice to your children.
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My partner and I are not well off but we manage to buy a week's worth of fresh fruit and veg for under twenty pounds (UK money) from the local supermarket. Usually a bag of carrots, potatoes, onions, broccoli, leeks, cabbage and a few tins of beans at 35p each. That makes 2 portions (sometimes three) of stir-fry and soup with bread as a side. On good weeks we add mince to make a savoury meat meal that also stretches to 3 meals (for 2 people). We never eat junk food but make an effort to cook fresh and healthy food every night. It can be done with a bit of planning and effort. :)
It's not necessarly a question of money. There was a moment in my life, my mother was a single mother (my father died) she had to find an underpaid job (she had no qualification) with a lot of overtime to keep our boat floating. I never eat so much junk food in my life. Not because of money, but because when my widow mother had work her 10 hours a day, having to deal with her mourning, her kids, our sorrow, our homeworks, the chores, the paperworks, you'll understand that she wasn't really in the mood for cooking. It's not only a tax on poor people, it's also a tax on single parents who work a lot and working women with a partner not involve in chores.
That’s not a weeks worth, you just said enough for 2 -3 meals for 2 people. The average household has 4 people. My kids go through $15-$20 worth of apples a week. Then us about $5 in bananas, $2 in carrots, $4 in grapes, $3 strawberries, $4.50 for frozen mango, $2 tinned pineapple, $14 potatoes etc. Instead let’s go the junk food way. In a week I can buy 2-3 bags of frozen chips and powdered potato for $8, multi packs of chips and biscuits for under $10, a jar of pasta sauce for about $1.80 (high in sugar and salt) and a packet of dry pasta for $1. That is much cheaper than the healthier options.
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Foxxy. Bananas are 50 cents per pound and apples approximately $1 per pound. You're telling me that your family eats 10 pounds of bananas and 20 pounds of apples per week? , Everyone here is giving excuse after excuse as to why they can't eat healthier. At the end of the day, it's your body and your (long term) health. You've gotta want it enough that you're willing to put in an effort. If you're content with eating a poor diet then really, no one can stop you. Your kids don't have that same luxury. At the very least you should be making an effort to teach your children about maintaining a healthy lifestyle (even if you're not prepared to model one) and you should be providing them with the right tools to succeed. Anything less is a disservice to your children.
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Good on ya, B! I don't understand why people voted you down
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No we should NOT be subsidizing. Period.
Let's not forget when the electricity gets cut off because we can't afford to pay it and have to rely on per-packaged meals and fast food dollar menus. Been there. Done that. :-/
Or when your appliances break and you can't afford to get them fixed or replaced. I went without an oven for almost a decade!
Ovens are way overrated. When I got my first spot in the Caribbean, none of the places we looked at had an oven. I just got a $30 toaster oven and realized I can bake anything in there the same way as a full sized oven. Unless you’re roasting an animal, it shouldn’t be an issue.
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Wait, you couldn't get your oven repaired for 10 years??! What the??
Being poor is expensive. If the initial outlay for dinner for a work week might be 34$ (making each meal under 7$), but if you only have 20$, you can't buy for the week, so you buy "cheap" food--for the day. Just like bus tokens--if a month's pass is $83--that's about 2$ a trip, but if you're poor, you have to buy individual tokens, or weekly tokens, and you will end up paying far more.
Same for many people who are not able to rent a flat in France, because they don't have a good referee and/or enough money to pay a deposit. They end up living in hotels and, thus, spending much more than they would were they able to rent a place. Of course, not having a permanent address seriously limits their access to the job market, which makes the situation much worse for them. Ridiculous.
this is the same conundrum for renting versus buying, here in the us. my small nuclear family is finally moving back home after my husband an di have finished school. and while i think long term we'll be ok, it's galling that we will have to RENT for $1500/month as opposed to if we JUST HAD A FOOT in the door, we could pay a mortgage for like $900 in a similarly sized house. and yeah, ive looked at the cheaper options, im not only considering swanky fancy apartments or nice new houses.
Ueda easy
And if you're late paying bills you get charged $10 but if you have the money to pay them in full instantly you get a 25% discount, ffs!!! You cant afford to buy when there are sales on, you'll never get discounts for being a "preferred" customer etc etc. & because you buy cheap &/or 2nd hand LOTS of stuff breaks/dies very quickly.
Imagine the worst. We have inflation. Can you guess what thing rise it's price more? You got it. Food and medicaments. The poor are practically forced to live the day and you can see more people asking for a meal on community kitchens (don't know the actual name , sorry). On that places maybe they give them a warm meal and a fruit but not the actual Jeremy's menu, of course.
oh my god yesssssss this is sooooo trueeeeeeeeeeeeeee. the other extreme of this is that rich people often get shit for free.
I can't figure out why you were downvoted--especially your comment about housing
I am trying to learn to cook healthy and the biggest obstacle for me is that I cannot afford to make mistakes and have to throw food out, and I also can't afford to try new things that we may end up hating and having to throw out. What if I don't make couscous right or my family won't eat it? How can I essentially gamble my little bit of money away on an unknown food when there are all the box and frozen dinners that I know how to make and know my family can and will eat? Even buying fruits and vegetables can be risky because I don't know how to pick out the "good" stuff and often bring home mealy apples, rotten avocadoes, etc. Sorry for the rant, this is just a constant source of stress.
Nikki, I don't know where you live but if you can, ask the produce person for advice on how to pick the good stuff! They work with it all day long, and they're happy to share their knowledge. Hugs, and best of luck to you!
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The mealy apples are still good to use in pie. The rotten avocado I'd take back to the store.
I mean this may be useless but food pantry might help you spread your budget if you just need a little extra while you work it out?
Nikki, I'm a single mother and really related to your comment! I've found that making complicated meals can be both a waste of time and money. Try going for easier recipes like doing a taco night, where you build your own. I grow herbs on my deck and make a mean pesto sauce using the basil I've grown, pine nuts (buy them in the baking aisle- always cheaper) olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. My parents gave me a black and decker bread machine and it's been a life changer! You can make a delicious loaf of bread with 3-4 basic ingredients (flour, yeast, water) all at the flick of a switch.
But box frozen dinners are so fucking EXPENSIVE. I had so many months where buying one of those dinners was all I wanted but I couldn’t afford it and had to get tofu and canned green beans instead. Frozen prepackaged food is so damn expensive. An avocado is $1.50. Salt, pepper and a slice of bread with that avocado is a $2 lunch. No way is that more expensive than a frozen meal. And there’s no leftover avocado.
I like to cut the tofu (I always get hard tofu) into cubes and sauté it in soy sauce. Also, I will sometimes use a single egg and then scramble the tofu into it, which stretches the egg use out considerably.
where do you live? not judging too hard but in the us MOST produce you can usually get a majority of good quality right out of the bin. and avocados are too expensive for me to experiment with either lol
Sex Bench above made some good points......................................Sex Bench?????
Am I reading it well ? Pizza Junk Food ? Im italian, what the hell.
Most pizza bought from in store or takeaway joints is laden with salt and sugar. So yes junk food.
Kamil, you will be very vey surprised by how much hidden sugar is in almost everything. Pizza dough needs sugar for the yeast to feed off and activate it. Most of the sugar is in the pizza sauce though. A slice of frozen pizza contains on average 5grams of sugar.
Im missing the point. You can buy very healty food spending less than junk food, as long as you're that minimum organized to set up a decent salad. Or pasta or whatever. Certainly I know, there are canned food already cooked, soups and whatever and of course they're ready to eat, with lots of ingredients of doubtful origin.
Sugar in pizza, since when? They are unhealthy though: mostly bread and fatty cheese. Italian pizza is a bit better -- thin base, nowhere as much cheese -- but still something that's better not eaten every day.
I hear ya! But I guess even a salad can be junk food if you really try hard. Add loads of salt, sugar, and bad kinds of fat to the dressing - et voilà !
Using a bottle of pre-made caesar dressing has this effect.
You actually dont need to try hard to make a salad junk food. Just add some dressing,mayo or other stuff and thats it ;)
Taxing junk and fast food is not the solution to make people eat healthier. Making good and healthy food cheaper is a better solution.
Good and healthy food NEED to be cooked! A lot dont know or care to learn to cook! Others dont have time so they eat shit and blame the stores they dont provide cheap food.
OT, but I read a really interesting thing a while back in regards to homeless people eating junk food. What homeless people soon learn is that the most important thing is calories, not nutrition because they have to LIVE, and to do that they need calories to burn. So a bag of chips is 'better' for them than an apple that might have all of 80 calories. Really interesting perspective.
Every school, k-12 should offer healthy and nutritious breakfast and lunch. For free, if the family can not afford it. There is enough food and money to make sure no one goes hungry, especially children.
Good thing is that several schools around the world are now giving free meals for the children. The nutrition value is not necessary the best possible in all those free meals but at least it is still better than nothing, especially if the child is from a poor family. I am from Finland and here all schools have had free meals for over 70 years now and the nutrition is also OK with those meals.
Spent half my life on welfare, this is bullshit.
Many people 'make too much' for welfare but not enough to pay all bills comfortably. Just because you lucked out does not mean everyone else does.
Also depends on the state. In Arizona, for a family that consists of a parent and child, you have to make less than $20k a year to get any state aid. Including food stamps, help with utility bills and Medicaid.
Did you have depression, two small kids to take care of and an ex trying to murder you?
Everyone is different I guess. Some cope, some don't.
It seems this woman's need for junk food as a child was completely an issue with her mad mother exhausting her dad and not because of poverty. Cooking really doesn't take any more TIME than waiting in the takeaway for someone else to make it. Cost-wise, that probably depends on what you make and what country you were raised in. Here you can get 1.5kg of carrots for $2.50, a tin of tomatoes for $1, loaf of bread $1. There's vege soup and bread for dinner right there, not using all those carrots or a whole loaf, so around $4 for a family meal. I don't know of any takeaways you can get in my country, to feed a family, for less than that. Cooking IS cheaper, but the circumstances people may find themselves in otherwise may well make them feel disinclined/unable to do so, and that is understandable.
I grew up being poor, in Russia of the 1990s. I can say that we couldn't even AFFORD junk food. Pizza? That's something I first had in the 2000s. Even today it's cheaper to buy some groceries and cook a simple meal yourself than to eat out in McDonalds or KFC. I'd say junk food is more of a cultural thing.
I live in Greece. All the healthy stuff here are cheaper than the unhealthy. Legumes, seasonal vegetables, rice pasta, fish (fresh) like sardines and anchovies, seasonal fruit etc all are cheaper than pizza, burgers, sausages, fatty meats and the lot. With the cost of a take away for four you can cook four meals. With the cost of supermarket pizza you can cook at least two meals. With the cost of two MacDonald cheeseburgers you can cook a pot of lentils for 4 or five people. Yet, many people who struggle with money prefer to buy and eat unhealthy stuff. I don't know if there is an explanation to this...
Vegetables and fruit are needlessly expensive--maybe because they are imported? Whereas Greece has an amazing climate...
The explanation is laziness! :)
What this lady shares on social media is not about being poor at all.... What she describes is parental neglect due to mental health. Talking purely from a financial point of view it is always cheaper to cook yourself food bought in bulk rather than the discount section. When you really are poor you can not afford junk food from the discount section. People who were really poor know that buying in bulk is muuuuuuuch cheaper. Bulk cheap rice, cheap dried crackers, bulk cheap onions and potatoes, flour, sugar, butter, cheap chicken every now and then, cod (or whichever fish is the cheapest in your region) apples, simple salad and where I grew up pork was very cheap too. As a kid I never had salmon, steaks, cereals, exotic fruits. And you know what? Who cares... I do not feel I missed out it is such a shallow thing...
Yes, but buying in bulk can waste the food. There's just my husband and myself and we buy foods we can freeze in bulk, but produce is too expensive and goes bad quickly for just two people. It's a good idea for large families, but if you're poor, bulk stores cost membership fees and those are considered a luxury.
Hm, never had problems with rice, potatoes or apples going bad. It is a given that you can not buy 10 kg of paprika or tomatoes. If your potatoes go bad make sure to put them in a dark place :) Also just to make it clear when I talk about bulk I do not mean specialised bulk stores where you need membership. This lady is from the UK. In Europe you have multiple sizes of packages. From small packaging of let us say 250 gram rice to 5 kg rice . This is available in many stores.
But you need money to buy in bulk. A lot of people don't have the money.
On YouTube there is a channel called Epic Mealtime. They make very unhealthy meals, then scoff it all up. It's purely for entertanment. Jamie 'effin' Oliver was a guest on one episode. This was "just before" all this sugar tax business. Conclusion: He's a fecking hypocrite!
A few other things to consider that I seldom see mentioned: people living in poverty may not have a refrigerator, in which to store perishables or frozen vegetables. They may not have a stove or an oven - they may be doing well to have a hot plate. They might not have any cookware; pots, pans, spatulas, spoons, knives, mixing bowls, cutting boards - they may have a counter next to a basin in a cheap hotel room, with a couple of plastic plates and plastic forks and knives. It seems in all these food virtue discussions that the minimum of a working kitchen is assumed, and all that's needed is putting healthy food in it instead of junk food. That unconscious assumption reveals the privilege involved. Poor is poorer than that.