Poor people in the UK can't eat healthy food because...

a reply to: Aazadan

I was below the poverty line. (which was like $15k at the time). I was spending almost as much on food as I was rent ($560). I was sinking with each passing month. Gaining more debt each month, just to pay the bills.

I was certainly not the poorest of the poor. Fortunately I woke up and realized how badly I was behaving financially and decided to start budgeting better and joined the military to learn a skill and stabilize my income.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

The same can be said for Americans!!!

I say this ALLLL the time! I am a single mom with ZERO assistance and I live off of $13/hour. I live on a tight budget but when it comes to food I cook! I cook everything from scratch. I will also take one meal and turn it into 3. I will buy a whole chicken and make a roast, then I take that roast and make a broth with it, from the broth I will make soup AND chicken pot pie! I am Queen among friends for turning one meal into many. I have wanted to make threads on it for years but I just don't have the time like I use to on here for posting my recipes.

I shop at 3 different stores to make my money go further. I also meal prep and freeze a ton of things like homemade cream of soups which can be used in so many meals. I even buy organic veggies at the local produce shop and they are so much cheaper than regular priced vegetables in the grocery store. I also love the overly ripe section at the produce shop. It's great for tomatoes to make my own sauce.

People are way too lazy and have excuse after excuse as to why they don't cook. It is NOT hard! I have a friend who was one of these lazy types and I love her as an example. Well she was severely overweight, she even had to have surgery. Most of her weight issue was/is genetic. Well she had the by pass surgery and after that she completely changed her diet. She learned to cook and now she makes gourmet meals and everything! She has a garden and has even taught her children to cook. I have to say I was very proud of the change she made and she is proof it can be done.

It is all about priorities. The same people I see complain about food cost and being poor are the same ones with car payments they can't afford or extra's they can't afford like a fancy cell phone. I have a cheap phone because I don't want to pay for an iPhone even though I am a die hard Apple person. I have an iPhone but I can't afford what the cost is for service so I tether my cheap phone to it to access the internet. I have learned all the ways to save money and live on a budget. People need to learn priorities!

Oh shut it. Fat people are harder to kidnap! That's every one is so fat. Aliens won't eat us!

originally posted by: mblahnikluver
I am Queen among friends for turning one meal into many.

You are an example to us all. You can teach the majority of us so much through your approach to no-waste. Well done.

a reply to: paraphi
I thought the same.
My best mate is similar, only veg peelings and egg shells leave his house as he uses everything in his cooking, his dogs eat the bones.

originally posted by: paraphi

originally posted by: mblahnikluver
I am Queen among friends for turning one meal into many.

You are an example to us all. You can teach the majority of us so much through your approach to no-waste. Well done.

I have honestly wanted to make threads on it but I haven't had time. I use to post my recipes all the time on here but after I had my son and got into the working 9-5 world i just don't have the time i use to. I really want to make threads and share with others because it really is easy to cook for yourself and make it last, most people just don't know. I taught myself to cook mostly because I was poor! I wanted to learn how to make things from scratch and I found out it is much cheaper!

Most people don't see leftovers as another meal but I do! I am always using left overs for a new meal. I hate wasting food. There is so much you can do and if you have the space you can freeze it for later.

originally posted by: CornishCeltGuy
a reply to: paraphi
I thought the same.
My best mate is similar, only veg peelings and egg shells leave his house as he uses everything in his cooking, his dogs eat the bones.

Exactly! I read somewhere that crushed eggs shells are good for something like your hair or skin. I haven't tried that yet. lol

I don't like to waste food at all. It makes me cringe! I think of the money I basically threw down the drain when faced with tossing food. I have also learned to cook for two or maybe 3 so we have left overs. When it comes to things like pasta, I love to make my own and YES it takes time but it is really cheap to make your own and it's so cool to tell people you made your own. You can even dry it and store it for later. I love making veggie pastas or lasagna noodles.

a reply to: mblahnikluver
I left home aged 16 and the first thing I did was buy this book from a charity shop, it was published in 1963 so it taught me all about using leftovers and making things with ingredients including baking and sauces, the way people used to cook, all the tips and tricks my mother would have been taught by her grandmother.
I treasure this book, it kept me alive and fed well, it's over a decade older than me but this single publication taught me all the skills I use to this day!

Tonight I'm making a huge cooking pot of vegetable stew and needed a few ingredients, this was my shop earlier:
400 gramme can of chopped tomatoes - £0.35
750 gramme bag of new potatoes - £0.49
Medium sized Leek - £0.05
5 medium carrots - £0.30
10 Spring Onions - £0.26
One whole Garlic - £0.30
30 gramme jar of hot crushed Chillies - £0.85 (will last me a month or two)
Oh and as a snacking treat I bought a 180 gramme dipping pot of spicy chilli houmous to munch with some sliced baton carrots. That cost £1.20, but as I said, just a treat, I could do without it.

I want to see a scan of that shopping receipt, otherwise I am going to have to call you a prevaricator.

Tomatoes, 400g can, cheapest I can find is 65p from Lidl.
Never known any stores sell 750g bags of potatoes, only 2.5 and 5kg bags. Or 100g bags of Jersey Royals.
Medium sized leek, cheapest I've found recently for leeks, is 95p each from Tesco.
Carrots seem to come in 1kg bags for £1.50
Spring Onions come in bunches of 6 for £1.50 from Aldi.
OK, Garlic I will grant you. 35p at my local Sainsbury.
Can't comment on the chillies as I never use them.

Basically what I believe you've done, is bulk buy, then divided the price to get the individual item price or "per portion" price. Which is the same way the Daily Fail claims you can feed a family of 102932894 on £0.20. But its a fallacious way of formulating the argument.

Lets take a kilo of carrots. £1.50. You might get about 20 carrots in the bag. So about 7.5p per carrot. Multiply by your 5 carrots, gives 37p. Then throw away the other 15 carrots, as a single person like myself would never be able to use them before they turn nasty from being in the fridge too long, or rotten from being unrefridgerated. In the end, those 5 carrots still cost me £1.50.

Dividing by portions like that, to work out a portion cost, only works if you have a family, and can use the WHOLE amount before they turn rotten.

a reply to: BMorris
Oh dear, not another one [/yawn]
Just go to Tesco.com and check it yourself. I didn't buy it online though I went to one of their superstores and it's even cheaper if you buy stuff with the sell by date on the day.
I can't be bothered going through this again, it was tiresome last time, and in any case I'm not going through my bin looking for a receipt just because some guy on the internet doesn't believe me.

Call me what you like mate I don't care, it is exactly as I stated in the amounts I described as I put them in my shopping bag after scanning them at the self service tills.
I am unconcerned if you don't believe me.
Have a nice end to your sunday.

EDIT
I'll give you that about the spuds, I was surprised and snapped them up, they must be local to us because they were a small bag of Cornish baby potatoes, all eaten now though they were lovely.

Here you go, this was on top in the bin, I ain't rummaging past carrot peelings, cat food tins, and banana skins to find a poxy receipt just because you think I'm lying.
Now you gonna stop being so confrontational?

You will note from the picture I uploaded above they were both taken sat on top of the same laptop keyboard I'm typing this on so it wasn't cut n pasted off the internet. If you ask me to take a picture of the back of the bag to prove it contained 750g of potatoes you will just make yourself look more silly than you already have done with your needless demands.
I think I've proven my point now, so goodnight and try to change your attitude in future it appears needlessly unfriendly.

My feeling is this:Eat right. Exercise. Die anyway.

People are lazy the world over. Americans drive everywhere bc the distances to and from work, doctors, the supermarkets, school,etc... is a LOT! Its nothing to put 100 miles a day on your car. Nobody is going to walk. Period!
I know damn well I ain't.

a reply to: Dishwasher
I agree about the US, which is why I posted about the UK because I couldn't comment about your nation, only what I know. Britain is all close together, everyone with healthy legs in an urban environment can walk to a cheap major chain store.
I rarely drive, I walk to work, I walk to the stores, I walk to the beach, I walk to bar and nightlub areas no taxi home needed, I walk to the cinema, I walk to the rugby club to watch matches on game day, I walk to all my fiends houses, I walk to the hospital, doctors, and dentist, basically I walk everywhere and hardly ever drive.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

You forgot to incorporate the cost of time, pre-existing stress factors, & fatigue. Again, we're looking at a couple of the most obvious non-linear complicating factors - just the first layer of the onion. If a person has become overweight, has a miserable life, can't afford to provide the lifestyle for her family that society tells her she must produce for her kids (and herself/ her partner if she has one), then a host of psychological nasties are already chomping at the bit as we grace the second layer of that onion.

Your prices were correct, in monetary terms - but I'm telling you, that's not even half the story.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment
So are you saying that all the nillions of fat people in the UK are victims of this essentially psychological challenges causing to not buy cheap healthy food instead of fatty junk then?
None of them lazy? Maybe a percentage lazy? you seem to be implying that you are informed in such matters so go on what percentage of fat British people are unable to buy healthy food because of the challenges you describe? And how do you know this?

EDIT
The OP is addressing the specific 3 excuses that are often made for poor people in the UK being unable to cook healthy food, namely Can't afford it, may not have a cooker/oven, and busy lives. I didn't post it asking about other reasons such as you suggest, psychological reasons, and yes I agree that is a valid point to counter my own personal suggestion of laziness.
I imagine a percentage of people certainly are too emotionally/mentally unwell to face the task of actual cooking, but the percentage is unknown, as is the percentage of lazy people.
You countered my personal opinion regarding laziness so may I ask if you agree or disagree with the other 3 main points in the OP?

My wife and I might not fall into the "poor people" category, but we take pride in the fact that we currently feast like kings on a keto diet for less than £30 a week - and that's only because we still cheat and buy some prepackaged stuff. We didn't even think of the budget when we started - in fact, we were expecting it to cost more. It turns out that eating better was a damn sight cheaper than we expected.

We could still eat very well (and very healthily) for £20 a week to cover the both of us. Not to save money, just because that's all we would need to spend if we were willing to spend a bit more time on food preparation or hunting down better deals.

The kids cost us a bit more because we encourage them to cook their own meals and explore different recipes, but if needed we could turn our two meals into four meals without a massive increase in cost.

When you consider how many "poor fat people" are spending multiples of that on booze and fags every week, I reject the premise of the thread.

Also, I'm left with the strange mental image of CCG standing on his roof, waving a flag and yelling "Kernow bys vyken!"

originally posted by: AlexandrosTheGreat
Wish you hadn't given the medical crowd a pass. Sorry but I will rip my hair out if I see one more slob crying, "thyroid this," and, "you don't know that." Oh I forgot the, "I know I have tried EVERY diet and exercise in the universe." Sorry but even with ten thyroids burning all those calories you take in and getting calories from sensible foods WILL result in weight loss every single time. I love how people latch on to cop outs like, "my thyroid," and want the world to believe it doesn't just change their metabolism but it completely eradicates any relationship that food, exercise, and weight have for them.

Even better, surely the people with thyroid issues should be taking even more care of their dietary intake...

Eating well is not difficult or expensive; exercising some self-control and taking responsibility is the real issue.

originally posted by: Dishwasher
Oh shut it. Fat people are harder to kidnap! That's every one is so fat. Aliens won't eat us!

Ah yes but the zombies will feast, see the movie zombieland for reference...

originally posted by: CornishCeltGuy
a reply to: ThirdEyeofHorus

The OP is about Britain though, as others agreed cheap fruit and veg is available easily, free same or next day delivery from the major supermarkets as well.
Poverty is no excuse for not eating healthy. I am poor at the moment due to sporadic working hence I am buying cheap healthy food which I can prepare myself because I have time.

I just wanted to say--wow, it must be really nice to have fruit and vegetables at reasonable prices. And I mean that sincerely, no sarcasm intended. In the US--or at least where I'm at--most fruit and vegetables are expensive, especially the fresh kind. Canned green beans, canned corn, and canned peaches or "fruit cocktail"--mainly pears with a handful of peaches--are extremely cheap. Other stuff, not so much. A 10-pound bag of potatoes--the cheapest of cheap vegetables, pound for pound, is about $6 right now. Onions are about a dollar per pound, green peppers a dollar apiece, turnips a couple bucks for 2-3 small ones. A head of broccoli, as another poster suggested, is $2-$3 depending on the size. A pound of fresh green beans--which are in season at the moment--is about $2 (and is far less than a pound once you remove the ends, wilted beans, etc.) Carrots are always cheap, and corn on the cob is in season right now and is about 50 cents per ear, but leaf greens other than nutritionally-bankrupt iceberg lettuce are ridiculously expensive, as is most fruit.

I'd give my eyeteeth for 50-cent heads of broccoli etc. I'm feeding a family of 4 adults and 2 small children, and I easily spend $100/week on fruit and vegetables alone, even with buying plenty of canned and frozen veggies. Luckily, I can afford to. When I was young and poor, however, we ate green beans on a daily basis and never, ever had fruit other than the odd can of peaches or bunch of grapes when they were on sale.