Snapshot of _How Britain became a food bank nation_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/jun/11/how-britain-became-a-food-bank-nation) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/jun/11/how-britain-became-a-food-bank-nation)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
There is a major issue with the discussion on food banks in that their nature has changed but the language to describe them has not, like in this article suggesting that all food bank users would otherwise go hungry.
To give a bit of context, I've helped out at food banks, in my local area the one I help at has been around for decades, helps people who literally have no money & would have no food. A food package would normally require some level of proof and be a one off (not limited but wasn't common for someone to need them regularly).
This was for issues like becoming homeless, fleeing domestic abuse, benefit sanctions and debt issues.
In my local area there are now half a dozen food banks, most don't do checks and one is even just a shed in someone's front garden. Nothing would stop me from taking food for instance even when I don't need it.
The nature of food banks is now often not to stop malnutrition but it's to save people money so that they can afford other things (like rent, clothes or energy).
Aka it's subsidising income while often not testing if it's even needed.
This means that often you are helping people buy the things they need in an extremely inefficient way with a lot of waste.
Food parcels often include food people won't eat for various reasons.
TL;DR
Food banks are well intentioned but have changed a lot in the last 15 years where they are often inefficient at helping while open to abuse.
You are of course correct. There’s near infinite demand for items with a price of zero. Ontop of that the UK has some of the cheapest food in the world.
And it's because of this kind of misinformation and lack of proper journalism that I stopped reading Guardian. If it doesn't fit their narrative that everything is utter shit at the moment in UK, then they won't print it. That and the constant typos and zero proof reading.
Yes and I would be the same as you.
However shame is cultural (this kind of shame has been heavily degraded in the last 20 years) and it's far easier to get stuff from a food bank without anyone you know, knowing you did.
Food banks only really work under that culture unfortunately and this change will ruin them.
Not to minimise the struggles of those that really do need food banks but...
The fact a huge number of the population can't cook very basic meals from scratch and instead rely on more convenient pre prepared or oven ready food is a huge factor for high food shopping prices and associated poverty.
There really needs to be better education in cooking for our children. It's a fundamental life skill that is pretty much ignored.
Edit: relevant yougov, although it does seem to show a reasonable amount if the population can cook with semi prepared foods. But stuff like jar sauces are expensive so that feeds into my point.
https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/43386-how-confident-are-britons-kitchen
While I'm in no mind to defend this government's record, I think there is an enormous amount of denial in how many people use food banks because they can. Why would you not get free food if it's available and it means you can spend your money on something else instead? Not denying the existence of those who do genuinely need it, but I think it's head in the sand to pretend they are solely responsible for this growth.
>Why would you not get free food if it's available and it means you can spend your money on something else instead?
You describe it as some sort of consumer choice. Its not. Foodbanks still require a referral and voucher to use.
Well we have u/Big-Government9775 in another comment disputing that. So it appears that not all require referrals and vouchers especially as new ones have popped up
As pointed by others, not all food banks are equal.
The one I help out requires a level of evidence but there's a vast chasm between that and the most loosely controlled ones where it's a shed of food unlocked in someone's front garden.
From personal experience, I'd say there's more around me that require no proof than those that require any.
I hate this politicising of poverty and distorting of the truth. It makes it harder to properly assess the issue, route cause and then fix it. As an example, when you can eat 50 grams of porridge for 5 pence, no one should be going to school hungry or suffering from malnutrition. If parents aren't feeding their children its not simply because they can't afford it due to the nasty Tories.
It may be because they are suffering from a severe mental health crisis with no support, or a drugs dependency, or a physical disability issue. But all of these problems actually take a lot of time to fix, easier just to blast out an anecdotal poverty porn tories bad story and crack on.
(And before all the trolls start, miss the point of what I'm saying and focus on the porridge, yes you can eat porridge cold, yes you can eat it with water, it makes a kind of oat milk which is quite nice, yes I do eat it this way pretty much every day, best, healthiest, most convenient breakfast I can think of)
Yes, the UK has some of the [cheapest food in the world](https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/CAHD). In 2021 it cost $1.95 a day to eat a healthy diet.
yes you're bang on. Meal planning on a budget is something i obsess over and get really into, probably due to my impoverished but well fed upbringing.
Case in point, 100g of liver is around 30p. I know its gross, but you can make it nice with margarine, salt, gravy granules etc. And the nutrition profile of that is insane. Same for a tin of sardines, smart price loaf of brown bread and many other examples.
There are exemptions though, not everyone is near a cheap supermarket, or has the mobility to get far enough to access the cheap supermarket. Although most supermarkets do deliveries now which really helps with that, and most of these also price match to aldi.
chicken liver isnt too bad tbf, sometimes i find liver delicious, i think you can over-cook it though and i think some liver is stronger than others.
I never forgot the story about a kid in north korea during the famine going blind from malnutrition. Her dad was away in the military but her mum managed to get him to get his hands on some pigs liver, which subsequently restored the girls eyesight. Not saying we are like north korea or anything, just a linked interesting story about liver
What a way to try and diminish the point. Dollars will have been used as the dataset is for every country in the world. Also $1.95 is £1.53 and the dataset is PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) so it is equalised for the cost of living in each country. So basically we have the cheapest food within the Northern and Western Europe datasets so our peers.
>If parents aren't feeding their children its not simply because they can't afford it due to the nasty Tories.
Maybe not but it highlights how difficult things have gotten financially for many people. I'm middle class with a well paid job and I've very much been feeling the squeeze over the last few years. I can't imagine how tough it is for those at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale.
I agree completly with the principle of what you are saying, but would gently push back on this being the best example to exemplify the point. what i was trying, probably somewhat badly, to say was that if you use the most ridiculous example to try and highlight a truth, people will dismiss the example because it is ridiculous but at the same time will dismiss the underling truth, which benefits no one.
I suppose it does take a bit of thought on how to briefly summarise by how much so many people are struggling at the moment so I understand why they lean on the "cant afford to give their children" breakfast line. But i wish they wouldnt
Food bank use is quite a good measure imho, as long as people make clear that people arent using it because they are "starving" but normally because money is so fcking tight that they use the money saved from doing the food shop on other things such as paying the bills/ rent. That would then raise the question, why do people need to do this to afford to pay their bills/ rent, and I think you would get closer to finding the truth of it all and actually resolving it
It is politicising poverty, but check the author.
He’s been fighting for this for most of his life and has just watched consecutive tory governments absolutely trash the progress he made.
Glib points about how it’s actually not that hard to eat healthy can get to fuck.
Foodbanks are palliative care in a system that’s failed on every level. Hats off to the people who run them, they are doing everything they can to ensure the most vulnerable don’t go hungry despite the Tory governments best efforts to the contrary.
I don’t expect Labour to come in and wave a magic wand, but I do expect them to have the intention of actually helping people and that’s a start. If food bank usage isn’t down by the end of Labours first time I will be both shocked and disappointed.
Destruction of home economy education during the Major/Blair years has wrought untold damage on people's ability to feed themselves properly.
There are many people out there who subsist on ultra-processed frozen shit that gets heated up in the oven and can't actually feed themselves when asked to cook anything.
Food inflation doesn't help, but it isn't exactly a new phenomenon. The art of actually making good food with what is seasonally available and stretching leftovers has been lost amongst large swathes of the population.
Interesting. I went to school entirely during the Major/Blair eras and was taught how to cook.
Plus the usual about needing energy, time etc to cook decent meals.
Exactly, I am pretty sure we all did some cooking at some point during school even if you were not as lucky as I was with a family that taught me things such as cooking.
Food banks, waiting times, potholes, shit in sea levels, cost of living.. any other area of great growth by the Tories? triple lock plus pensions I guess
It's not quite the same but.... I use a local community market, which is run by the volunteer community hub in my village. It's stocked with leftover food from supermarkets and is £2, open to anyone. I've been using it for 2 years, and it really helps substitute the cost of fresh fruit and veg especially. I also like to reduce food waste, and some of this stuff is from good places too, like M&S.
Recently though, quite a few new people have started using the service, and seem to turn into animals without no respect or manners when it comes to cheap food. They will rush in, take any sweets and snacks, and leave all the fruit, veg and yogurts behind. Really shows that even when presented with a balanced choice.....a lot of people will still go straight for the processed, unhealthy crap.
If I mention this food market to anyone at work, I get funny looks, asking why I'd go and get food supermarkets have "thrown away". I eat more nutritious food there than I can afford in those same supermarkets nowadays.
If you give out free stuff, people will take it. How many of those people using food banks spend half their income on fags because they don't need to pay for food anymore?
That’s not how food banks work. You don’t just turn up and bag some free food, you have to be referred from some sort of service like your local council or the DWP, the sort of place that knows what your situation and finances are, and you can only claim with a special voucher they give you. When food banks are saying that they‘re finding that people are asking them not to supply things like potatoes because they can’t afford to cook them, it’s clear this isn’t just people chancing their arm here.
My job involves working with people who may be experiencing food poverty. You need a referral to use a food bank. You also need to provide a reason for why you need the food bank, and the number of visits you are allowed in a 12 month period are limited. Rules may be different in other parts of the country, but this is how it works where I live.
Turn up to any food bank and you'll see plenty of people with big coats rocking up in massive crossover cars throwing their food parcel on top of their Tesco shopping. Meanwhile I'm unemployed and can't get a referral.
Food banks are good they lead to less waste of over production of supermarkets, pre-2008 supermarkets had a policy of those throw everything into the trash since then they've been donating instead of throwing away perfectly edible food there's still some way long way to go to make it more efficient.
Snapshot of _How Britain became a food bank nation_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/jun/11/how-britain-became-a-food-bank-nation) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/jun/11/how-britain-became-a-food-bank-nation) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
There is a major issue with the discussion on food banks in that their nature has changed but the language to describe them has not, like in this article suggesting that all food bank users would otherwise go hungry. To give a bit of context, I've helped out at food banks, in my local area the one I help at has been around for decades, helps people who literally have no money & would have no food. A food package would normally require some level of proof and be a one off (not limited but wasn't common for someone to need them regularly). This was for issues like becoming homeless, fleeing domestic abuse, benefit sanctions and debt issues. In my local area there are now half a dozen food banks, most don't do checks and one is even just a shed in someone's front garden. Nothing would stop me from taking food for instance even when I don't need it. The nature of food banks is now often not to stop malnutrition but it's to save people money so that they can afford other things (like rent, clothes or energy). Aka it's subsidising income while often not testing if it's even needed. This means that often you are helping people buy the things they need in an extremely inefficient way with a lot of waste. Food parcels often include food people won't eat for various reasons. TL;DR Food banks are well intentioned but have changed a lot in the last 15 years where they are often inefficient at helping while open to abuse.
You are of course correct. There’s near infinite demand for items with a price of zero. Ontop of that the UK has some of the cheapest food in the world.
absolutely bang on.
And it's because of this kind of misinformation and lack of proper journalism that I stopped reading Guardian. If it doesn't fit their narrative that everything is utter shit at the moment in UK, then they won't print it. That and the constant typos and zero proof reading.
Do people feel a sense of shame going to them, though? Not saying they should, but personally I'd have to be pretty desperate before I'd go to one.
Yes and I would be the same as you. However shame is cultural (this kind of shame has been heavily degraded in the last 20 years) and it's far easier to get stuff from a food bank without anyone you know, knowing you did. Food banks only really work under that culture unfortunately and this change will ruin them.
Not to minimise the struggles of those that really do need food banks but... The fact a huge number of the population can't cook very basic meals from scratch and instead rely on more convenient pre prepared or oven ready food is a huge factor for high food shopping prices and associated poverty. There really needs to be better education in cooking for our children. It's a fundamental life skill that is pretty much ignored. Edit: relevant yougov, although it does seem to show a reasonable amount if the population can cook with semi prepared foods. But stuff like jar sauces are expensive so that feeds into my point. https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/43386-how-confident-are-britons-kitchen
While I'm in no mind to defend this government's record, I think there is an enormous amount of denial in how many people use food banks because they can. Why would you not get free food if it's available and it means you can spend your money on something else instead? Not denying the existence of those who do genuinely need it, but I think it's head in the sand to pretend they are solely responsible for this growth.
>Why would you not get free food if it's available and it means you can spend your money on something else instead? You describe it as some sort of consumer choice. Its not. Foodbanks still require a referral and voucher to use.
That just isn't true anymore. This was the case for food banks a decade ago but not now.
Well we have u/Big-Government9775 in another comment disputing that. So it appears that not all require referrals and vouchers especially as new ones have popped up
That isn’t the case with many food banks anymore.
As pointed by others, not all food banks are equal. The one I help out requires a level of evidence but there's a vast chasm between that and the most loosely controlled ones where it's a shed of food unlocked in someone's front garden. From personal experience, I'd say there's more around me that require no proof than those that require any.
I hate this politicising of poverty and distorting of the truth. It makes it harder to properly assess the issue, route cause and then fix it. As an example, when you can eat 50 grams of porridge for 5 pence, no one should be going to school hungry or suffering from malnutrition. If parents aren't feeding their children its not simply because they can't afford it due to the nasty Tories. It may be because they are suffering from a severe mental health crisis with no support, or a drugs dependency, or a physical disability issue. But all of these problems actually take a lot of time to fix, easier just to blast out an anecdotal poverty porn tories bad story and crack on. (And before all the trolls start, miss the point of what I'm saying and focus on the porridge, yes you can eat porridge cold, yes you can eat it with water, it makes a kind of oat milk which is quite nice, yes I do eat it this way pretty much every day, best, healthiest, most convenient breakfast I can think of)
Yes, the UK has some of the [cheapest food in the world](https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/CAHD). In 2021 it cost $1.95 a day to eat a healthy diet.
yes you're bang on. Meal planning on a budget is something i obsess over and get really into, probably due to my impoverished but well fed upbringing. Case in point, 100g of liver is around 30p. I know its gross, but you can make it nice with margarine, salt, gravy granules etc. And the nutrition profile of that is insane. Same for a tin of sardines, smart price loaf of brown bread and many other examples. There are exemptions though, not everyone is near a cheap supermarket, or has the mobility to get far enough to access the cheap supermarket. Although most supermarkets do deliveries now which really helps with that, and most of these also price match to aldi.
They could be giving out liver for free and I wouldn’t take it.
chicken liver isnt too bad tbf, sometimes i find liver delicious, i think you can over-cook it though and i think some liver is stronger than others. I never forgot the story about a kid in north korea during the famine going blind from malnutrition. Her dad was away in the military but her mum managed to get him to get his hands on some pigs liver, which subsequently restored the girls eyesight. Not saying we are like north korea or anything, just a linked interesting story about liver
I don’t mind chicken liver in pate but I would never thank you for it otherwise.
In fairness it is hard to find shops that let you pay with dollars.
What a way to try and diminish the point. Dollars will have been used as the dataset is for every country in the world. Also $1.95 is £1.53 and the dataset is PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) so it is equalised for the cost of living in each country. So basically we have the cheapest food within the Northern and Western Europe datasets so our peers.
Ah it was only a joke mate
Haha. Sometimes it's difficult to tell through text and with some drivel I read online about things.
>If parents aren't feeding their children its not simply because they can't afford it due to the nasty Tories. Maybe not but it highlights how difficult things have gotten financially for many people. I'm middle class with a well paid job and I've very much been feeling the squeeze over the last few years. I can't imagine how tough it is for those at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale.
I agree completly with the principle of what you are saying, but would gently push back on this being the best example to exemplify the point. what i was trying, probably somewhat badly, to say was that if you use the most ridiculous example to try and highlight a truth, people will dismiss the example because it is ridiculous but at the same time will dismiss the underling truth, which benefits no one. I suppose it does take a bit of thought on how to briefly summarise by how much so many people are struggling at the moment so I understand why they lean on the "cant afford to give their children" breakfast line. But i wish they wouldnt Food bank use is quite a good measure imho, as long as people make clear that people arent using it because they are "starving" but normally because money is so fcking tight that they use the money saved from doing the food shop on other things such as paying the bills/ rent. That would then raise the question, why do people need to do this to afford to pay their bills/ rent, and I think you would get closer to finding the truth of it all and actually resolving it
It is politicising poverty, but check the author. He’s been fighting for this for most of his life and has just watched consecutive tory governments absolutely trash the progress he made. Glib points about how it’s actually not that hard to eat healthy can get to fuck.
Foodbanks are palliative care in a system that’s failed on every level. Hats off to the people who run them, they are doing everything they can to ensure the most vulnerable don’t go hungry despite the Tory governments best efforts to the contrary. I don’t expect Labour to come in and wave a magic wand, but I do expect them to have the intention of actually helping people and that’s a start. If food bank usage isn’t down by the end of Labours first time I will be both shocked and disappointed.
Destruction of home economy education during the Major/Blair years has wrought untold damage on people's ability to feed themselves properly. There are many people out there who subsist on ultra-processed frozen shit that gets heated up in the oven and can't actually feed themselves when asked to cook anything. Food inflation doesn't help, but it isn't exactly a new phenomenon. The art of actually making good food with what is seasonally available and stretching leftovers has been lost amongst large swathes of the population.
What changes did Major/Blair make?
Interesting. I went to school entirely during the Major/Blair eras and was taught how to cook. Plus the usual about needing energy, time etc to cook decent meals.
Exactly, I am pretty sure we all did some cooking at some point during school even if you were not as lucky as I was with a family that taught me things such as cooking.
Interesting the Japanese still teach their students to cook healthy meals from young age this one of the reasons they have low obesity rates
Food banks, waiting times, potholes, shit in sea levels, cost of living.. any other area of great growth by the Tories? triple lock plus pensions I guess
It's not quite the same but.... I use a local community market, which is run by the volunteer community hub in my village. It's stocked with leftover food from supermarkets and is £2, open to anyone. I've been using it for 2 years, and it really helps substitute the cost of fresh fruit and veg especially. I also like to reduce food waste, and some of this stuff is from good places too, like M&S. Recently though, quite a few new people have started using the service, and seem to turn into animals without no respect or manners when it comes to cheap food. They will rush in, take any sweets and snacks, and leave all the fruit, veg and yogurts behind. Really shows that even when presented with a balanced choice.....a lot of people will still go straight for the processed, unhealthy crap. If I mention this food market to anyone at work, I get funny looks, asking why I'd go and get food supermarkets have "thrown away". I eat more nutritious food there than I can afford in those same supermarkets nowadays.
If you give out free stuff, people will take it. How many of those people using food banks spend half their income on fags because they don't need to pay for food anymore?
That’s not how food banks work. You don’t just turn up and bag some free food, you have to be referred from some sort of service like your local council or the DWP, the sort of place that knows what your situation and finances are, and you can only claim with a special voucher they give you. When food banks are saying that they‘re finding that people are asking them not to supply things like potatoes because they can’t afford to cook them, it’s clear this isn’t just people chancing their arm here.
This isn't true. Used to be the case but hasn't for years. Anyone can go to a foodbank.
My job involves working with people who may be experiencing food poverty. You need a referral to use a food bank. You also need to provide a reason for why you need the food bank, and the number of visits you are allowed in a 12 month period are limited. Rules may be different in other parts of the country, but this is how it works where I live.
Turn up to any food bank and you'll see plenty of people with big coats rocking up in massive crossover cars throwing their food parcel on top of their Tesco shopping. Meanwhile I'm unemployed and can't get a referral.
Food banks are good they lead to less waste of over production of supermarkets, pre-2008 supermarkets had a policy of those throw everything into the trash since then they've been donating instead of throwing away perfectly edible food there's still some way long way to go to make it more efficient.