Fairy Nuff, Obelixx, but many takeaways are also cheaper to buy than the ingredients to make a decent healthy meal from scratch, so I do think food poverty is a serious issue, it’s not only about not being able to cook. Plus poverty of time if both parents are working. As well as having less time to do so themselves, working parents probably don’t have much time to teach their kids how to cook either and the loss of school cookery classes can’t help.
The lost art of home cooking, is, I believe, a societal issue that crosses all classes and income levels. The poor buy takeaways or cheap ready meals and the rich eat at expensive restaurants and leave their luxury show kitchens pristine...
I totally agree. Its sad how many people in my generation and even my mums generation simply dont know how to cook. Chicken nuggets and chips is a 'proper' meal to most kids and counts as cooking. You'd think schools would teach more valuable life skills like politics, how to manage money etc but they expect parents to teach those things when half of them don't know either!
Most of my favourite comfort foods are made from leftovers and even if I had to cook fresh to create 'leftovers' they would be cheaper and quicker to cook than takeaway food. Surely it's as important to teach basic cookery , plumbing, budgeting and scam avoidance as Shakespeare or quadratic equations . Maybe more important
I do patching and seam mending but for gardening I don't mind the odd hole except in pockets.
Cookery at school for me was not great. Odd recipes. Soused herrings which my did loved but his digestion didn't. A strange desert made by whisking a Rowntree's orange jelly mix with Carnation milk then decorating with tinned tangerines. Can't remember anything else and it was only the first two years of grammar school. Latin after that.
These days patterns are sold in multiple sizes which is great as different bits of me are different sizes so shop stuff rarely fits. The trick these days is finding suitable materiel.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Fairy Nuff, Obelixx, but many takeaways are also cheaper to buy than the ingredients to make a decent healthy meal from scratch, so I do think food poverty is a serious issue, it’s not only about not being able to cook.
I am more than capable of cooking. But vegetables are expensive, and for a single person I end up buying more than I use on the rare occasions I can afford to buy them.
Tub of grapes - £2.
Four pack of apples - £2.
Ready meal - £1.
12 Pack of own brand crisps - £0.79.
So like Nollie says it's really not hard to see why those of us on low incomes don't cook from scratch as often. I'm on the list for an allotment but even then I'll still have to find the money for the allotment itself, the tools, the seeds/plants, upkeep...
"My Harvest" is a group of horticulturists doing research into how much fruit and veg is grown in gardens and allotments in the UK. I've previously posted about them before, see copy of post below.
My Harvest have just published interim results as the logging of harvests continues to March 2019. 800 growers submitted 10000 harvests weighing 35 tonnes. 59%organic 41%non organic 58%allotment 41%garden 1%other 3000 growing spaces equivalent to 60 tennis courts Largest crops so far:Potatoes 5.4 tonnes, Broad beans 1.6t, Apples 2.1t, Tomato 1.7t and Courgettes 3.8t.
@Cheyngel - most of the year there are just 2 of us so packs of things can be too big for us too. However, if I buy loose fruit and veg I can get just enough. Not possible for you?
I never buy crisps - expensive and very unhealthy. Pound per gram, making your own hummus and dipping in carrot sticks would be more nitritious, more satifying and cheap.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Our Aldi - the only supermarket I can usually afford - only sells fruit and veg in multipacks. No loose veg sadly, which would be much more convenient for me.
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Surely it's as important to teach basic cookery , plumbing, budgeting and scam avoidance as Shakespeare or quadratic equations . Maybe more important
Cookery at school for me was not great. Odd recipes. Soused herrings which my did loved but his digestion didn't. A strange desert made by whisking a Rowntree's orange jelly mix with Carnation milk then decorating with tinned tangerines. Can't remember anything else and it was only the first two years of grammar school. Latin after that.
These days patterns are sold in multiple sizes which is great as different bits of me are different sizes so shop stuff rarely fits. The trick these days is finding suitable materiel.
- Fruit salad
- Bread
- Pizza
- Homemade chips
- Sponge cake
And that was it. I am more than capable of cooking. But vegetables are expensive, and for a single person I end up buying more than I use on the rare occasions I can afford to buy them.
Tub of grapes - £2.
Four pack of apples - £2.
Ready meal - £1.
12 Pack of own brand crisps - £0.79.
So like Nollie says it's really not hard to see why those of us on low incomes don't cook from scratch as often. I'm on the list for an allotment but even then I'll still have to find the money for the allotment itself, the tools, the seeds/plants, upkeep...
800 growers submitted 10000 harvests weighing 35 tonnes. 59%organic 41%non organic
58%allotment 41%garden 1%other
3000 growing spaces equivalent to 60 tennis courts
Largest crops so far:Potatoes 5.4 tonnes, Broad beans 1.6t, Apples 2.1t, Tomato 1.7t and Courgettes 3.8t.
I never buy crisps - expensive and very unhealthy. Pound per gram, making your own hummus and dipping in carrot sticks would be more nitritious, more satifying and cheap.
Our Aldi - the only supermarket I can usually afford - only sells fruit and veg in multipacks. No loose veg sadly, which would be much more convenient for me.