Nutrition and Tight Budgets

There has probably been a time when we’ve all been there, we might like to eat healthily, but our choices are limited. Certainly here in the UK I’ve never seen fruit and veg, whether it’s fresh, tinned or frozen, on special offers.

But guess what type of products are on special offer? Yep, you probably got it, highly processed items, things like highly processed meal items, crisps and cakes. This doesn’t help those who are struggling with money to feed themselves and or their families. When we’re struggling for money what counts is having a full belly, not a plateful of spinach.

From experience many moons ago, the only way I could make sure my daughter had food, was to buy a bag of spuds, tins of spaghetti hoops, beans, then tins of ravioli and cheap frozen sausages, fish fingers and the like. At least she wasn’t hungry.

Disgustingly, for a developed nation, here in the UK food banks have become a necessity for many people struggling. For one reason or another, they are unable to make ends meet and it’s heart breaking to know they are trying to do their damndest for their loved ones, and they just can’t make it.

And all the while obesity is growing, getting fatter but suffering with malnutrition. It’s ridiculous.

I keep seeing discussions about how to stop this obesity epidemic, the latest thing being to tax sugar laden items. Yes, that’s all very good, and yes, I suppose that’s going to help those that need the help the most, let’s face it, obesity is statistically a problem for those on lower incomes, so I guess making them pay through the roof for items does make sense, but you know what, JUST MAKE HEALTHY FOODS MORE COST EFFECTIVE!!!! stop penalising our more vunerable people!

Then there’s the education argument, well here’s the thing, who’s doing the educating? If a family cook does not know how to provide nutrition, their children won’t know any different, maybe schools? Well here’s another ridiculous situation – my friend’s son would love to be a chef, when choosing his GCSE options, cookery isn’t on the list! I don’t know if it’s the same everywhere, but at this school, there is no option to learn more indepth about food and nutrition, and gives no further education so a child can become confident and learn on his or her own outside of the system.

In this spirit, I decided to use my daughter and her fiancee as a guinea pig. They kindly provided me with a basic shopping list, and then I did as good as I could with the budget they use, I have broken the costs on both columns down for weekly use of items, so for instance they buy a pack of 20 nuggets, but only use 10 a week, so I’ve halved cost. The first column is their list, the second column is my attempt. Using the same supermarket (Asda).

10 brand pork sausages	1.00	2 salmon	3.19
200g brand  frozen beef mince	1.60	2 chicken fillets	1.80
10 frozen nuggets	0.53	2 gammon	3.00
10 fish fingers	2.00	250g 5% fat mince	2.19
250g asda spread	0.42	8 x 50% reduced fat sausages	1.50
4 pt milk	1.09	12 eggs	1.70
12 eggs	1.70	1kg spuds	0.80
2 loaves bread	1.10	30g gravey	0.10
375g craves type cereal	1.09	250g carot and swede mash	0.63
250g rice	0.49	160g frozen sweetcorn	0.16
250g mexican rice	0.59	140g brown rice	0.14
500g frozen carrot swede mash	1.25	160g cauliflower	0.16
2 cans soup	0.48	1 onion	0.25
2 cans all day breakfast	3.20	160g peas	0.11
60g mash packet	0.30	1 tin chopped toms	0.28
825g cheese	3.65	250g mushrooms	0.54
14 multipack crisps	1.40	60g mash sachet	0.30
pepperoni pizza	0.82	sprouts	0.16
cheese and tom pizza	0.70	250g reduced fat cheddar	1.75
500g seasoned fries	0.83	10 slices	1.50
25g biscuits	0.50	2 loaves wholewheat bread	1.10
8 penguins (choc bars)	1.00	250g sunflower spread	0.42
7 club bars (choc bars)	1.00	560g bran flake (own brand)	0.70
50 tea bags	0.40	4 pt milk	1.09
250g sugar	0.55	1 pack cuppa soups	1.07
	27.69	2 packs of snack of rice snack	1.08
		50 decaf tea bags	0.40
		250g stevia sweetner	2.40
		1 pack of rich tea	0.30
		1 bar of dark choc	1.99
			30.81

Now, £3.12 may not seem like a huge difference, but as some of us will know, there are times in life when actually that 11% shopping bill increase is just too much – that could go towards the cost of nappies, or might buy busfare for a day to and from a job or an interview!

I don’t know what the answer is, here’s a couple of suggestions:

I think if supermarkets are going to throw food away, they should give it to their local food banks, not just a bit of it, ALL of it, or to their local Salvation Army or churches, and should they find someone scavenging in their bins, which some people are forced to do, DON’T BLOODY TAKE THEM TO COURT!!!! Which, just in case you think I’m exaggerating, has happened!

Have free cookery classes for adults and encourage them to bring family members so more people benefit. In the end, it’s not really free is it, if just half of the family’s are able to take some good cooking practices and nutritional information away, there just might be a snowball effect for now and in the future for their better health. And as a nation, surely we want our neighbours to have the choice to be healthy? And of course, what with Type 2 Diabetes and it’s associated problems potentially halved, their’s less money needed on NHS treatments.

Make sure nutrition and cookery skills are taught all the way through the education system for our youngsters.

I watched a healthy type programme ages ago and was fascinated about a woman who owned an eatery, and served up fabulously healthy foods…. all out of tins!!! I wish I knew who she was, but following her lead, I’ve decided to try and research healthy, nutritional and CHEAP meals to share on my blog. I don’t know how often I will be posting, I’m currently thinking a new recipe with photos and costings every two weeks.

I’m hoping the blogs will find their way, via my followers to anyone who will benefit from it.

As a person who isn’t trained in nutrition or the health profession, I’ll be using what I’ve learned over the years, so for anyone who is knowledgeable, I would be very grateful if you could look out for my posts – which I will call “Cheap & Nutritional – dish name”, and let me know if I’m giving crap information out.

Anyway, thank you for reading.