This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/06/healthiest-menu-poor-people-free-school-meals-hungry
The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 2 | Version 3 |
|---|---|
| The healthiest menu for poor people? An extra helping from government | The healthiest menu for poor people? An extra helping from government |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| Four million children in the UK live in households that would struggle to afford to buy enough fruit, vegetables, fish and other healthy foods to meet the official nutrition guidelines, according to research by the Food Foundation. It makes for sobering reading; but as a mother who was once in the same situation, I think the guidelines often fall short of the realities of living on, or skirting, the breadline. | Four million children in the UK live in households that would struggle to afford to buy enough fruit, vegetables, fish and other healthy foods to meet the official nutrition guidelines, according to research by the Food Foundation. It makes for sobering reading; but as a mother who was once in the same situation, I think the guidelines often fall short of the realities of living on, or skirting, the breadline. |
| Talk to families in poverty, and ask them what they need, instead of prescribing it for them | Talk to families in poverty, and ask them what they need, instead of prescribing it for them |
| The Conservative government’s decimation of free school meals has no doubt contributed to the poor nutrition options available to low-income families. Reducing the threshold to an income of £7,400 – less than 10% of the basic salary of the MPs who voted to take them away – leaves a large swath of people in purgatory: there are 1 million children whose families neither earn enough to satisfy government “eat well” guidelines after housing costs and bills, nor have so little that they qualify for state subsidies. Hidden hunger is a scourge in our society, and it is growing. | The Conservative government’s decimation of free school meals has no doubt contributed to the poor nutrition options available to low-income families. Reducing the threshold to an income of £7,400 – less than 10% of the basic salary of the MPs who voted to take them away – leaves a large swath of people in purgatory: there are 1 million children whose families neither earn enough to satisfy government “eat well” guidelines after housing costs and bills, nor have so little that they qualify for state subsidies. Hidden hunger is a scourge in our society, and it is growing. |
| Over the last few years of my campaigning against poverty and working with hungry families, dozens and dozens of teachers have written to me, publicly and privately, to tell of pupils in their care for whom they provide breakfast, snacks, shoes, help with uniforms. They silently clear the kids’ school meal debts – guardian angels trying to patch up the yawning holes in the welfare safety net. | Over the last few years of my campaigning against poverty and working with hungry families, dozens and dozens of teachers have written to me, publicly and privately, to tell of pupils in their care for whom they provide breakfast, snacks, shoes, help with uniforms. They silently clear the kids’ school meal debts – guardian angels trying to patch up the yawning holes in the welfare safety net. |
| Commentators may scoff about “chips and cheese in Styrofoam containers, and behind them is a massive fucking TV”, or claim that “the demand for food banks only exists because they are there” while sneering about smartphones and Sky TV, but I had none of these when I was living in poverty. Neither do thousands of others. I sold my tiny secondhand TV and the iPhone I had bought myself when I had a decent job, to pay the rent. We ate as well as we were able to, but most days it simply wasn’t enough. I put my son’s nutritional needs first, and existed on pasta and thin air more times than I would dare to admit. | Commentators may scoff about “chips and cheese in Styrofoam containers, and behind them is a massive fucking TV”, or claim that “the demand for food banks only exists because they are there” while sneering about smartphones and Sky TV, but I had none of these when I was living in poverty. Neither do thousands of others. I sold my tiny secondhand TV and the iPhone I had bought myself when I had a decent job, to pay the rent. We ate as well as we were able to, but most days it simply wasn’t enough. I put my son’s nutritional needs first, and existed on pasta and thin air more times than I would dare to admit. |
| The man who is fervent about feeding hungry kids, but hates food banks | Aditya Chakrabortty | The man who is fervent about feeding hungry kids, but hates food banks | Aditya Chakrabortty |
| I went for lunch recently with a friend who has been appointed as an adviser to the government on nutrition. He asked my views on how to tackle the correlation between poverty and poor diet; as an upper-middle-class man with no direct experience, he wanted to know what really needed to be done. Extend the free school meals programme again, I suggested. Use the revenue from the sugar tax to expand the Healthy Start vouchers programme from a measly £3.10 a week to a more reasonable sum, and available to every family in receipt of child benefit. Lobby supermarkets to keep their value ranges fairly priced, as many ingredients now cost three times as much as they did five years ago, while the gourmet ranges have stayed at a fixed rate. Understand the poverty premium on time: why it’s easier, with a quid in your pocket and no time, to buy a bag of chips than a packet of pasta and a tin of tomatoes. | I went for lunch recently with a friend who has been appointed as an adviser to the government on nutrition. He asked my views on how to tackle the correlation between poverty and poor diet; as an upper-middle-class man with no direct experience, he wanted to know what really needed to be done. Extend the free school meals programme again, I suggested. Use the revenue from the sugar tax to expand the Healthy Start vouchers programme from a measly £3.10 a week to a more reasonable sum, and available to every family in receipt of child benefit. Lobby supermarkets to keep their value ranges fairly priced, as many ingredients now cost three times as much as they did five years ago, while the gourmet ranges have stayed at a fixed rate. Understand the poverty premium on time: why it’s easier, with a quid in your pocket and no time, to buy a bag of chips than a packet of pasta and a tin of tomatoes. |
| It’s easy to sit back and moralise under a warm roof with food in the cupboard; to finger-wag and say what you would do differently in “their situation”. I write cheap recipes for struggling families and single people, and have donated 800 copies of my newest cookery book to food banks and other good causes. But my work barely scratches the surface for people who are living in hostels, fleeing violence, severely disabled, lacking cooking equipment or unable to read, along with the many, many other variables that government guidance and armchair commentators fail to take into account. Talk to families in poverty and ask them what they need, instead of prescribing it for them. Ask what the barriers are. Ask what would help. And then deliver it. | It’s easy to sit back and moralise under a warm roof with food in the cupboard; to finger-wag and say what you would do differently in “their situation”. I write cheap recipes for struggling families and single people, and have donated 800 copies of my newest cookery book to food banks and other good causes. But my work barely scratches the surface for people who are living in hostels, fleeing violence, severely disabled, lacking cooking equipment or unable to read, along with the many, many other variables that government guidance and armchair commentators fail to take into account. Talk to families in poverty and ask them what they need, instead of prescribing it for them. Ask what the barriers are. Ask what would help. And then deliver it. |
| • Jack Monroe is a campaigner, columnist and author. The book Cooking on a Bootstrap is available now | • Jack Monroe is a campaigner, columnist and author. The book Cooking on a Bootstrap is available now |
| Poverty | Poverty |
| Opinion | Opinion |
| Food | Food |
| Social exclusion | Social exclusion |
| Children | Children |
| comment | comment |
| Share on Facebook | Share on Facebook |
| Share on Twitter | Share on Twitter |
| Share via Email | Share via Email |
| Share on LinkedIn | Share on LinkedIn |
| Share on Pinterest | Share on Pinterest |
| Share on WhatsApp | Share on WhatsApp |
| Share on Messenger | Share on Messenger |
| Reuse this content | Reuse this content |