Forum home The potting shed
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Make a nutritious meal for 30p challenge

123578

Posts

  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    Lyn said:
    I don’t know anyone on universal credit,   I’ve looked up the amounts people can claim, a couple with two children can claim £1060.30 a week + rent .
    I don’t know if this is true.
    I don't either but isn't that per month?
    Yes, of course,  miss typed! 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • Jenny_AsterJenny_Aster Posts: 945
    edited May 2022
    We've been conditioned to believe what's good for us and what's not. All my life I've been following the latest 'scientific' diet, with the 'science' mostly being sponsored by some food conglomerate. 

    Three meals a day is a recent phenomenon, brought about by the industrial revolution where the breadwinner would have a hearty meal put on the table (if they were lucky) after work. Before that, humans would eat when they were hungry.

    I'm wondering how many people actually experience hunger? I'm not talking about the faux hunger brought on by carb addiction. 

    We seem hung-up on food these days. Perhaps sometimes it would be wise to give our body a rest from eating, it is after all how we've evolved. We ate when we came across food, we slept when we felt tired, we hunted when we got hungry. 

    I'm not advocating starving kinds, far from it, but I do think we're now conditioned to have 3 'healthy' meals a day - do we actually need to eat so much?

    Pancakes and tatty hash was always on the menu when times were hard. Sometimes the tatty hash would be stretched over 2 mealtimes by putting a thick crust on the top and made into a 'meat and potato pie'. 

    Tin of corned beef £2
    3lb potatoes £0.75
    2lb carrots £0.30
    Couple handfuls of lentils £0.10
    1 onion £0.10
    2 oxo cubes £0.25 = total £3.50 at a pinch this could serve 10 meals.

    Trying to be the person my dog thinks I am! 

    Cambridgeshire/Norfolk border.
  • Allotment BoyAllotment Boy Posts: 6,774
    If it was June or later in the season, I could go to the Allotments,  and pick up a veritable banquet,  but that assumes I had previously had money for the rent seeds etc. If it was February or March all I  would have would be stored potatoes,  apples,  maybe some parsnips and sprouts left, that were still pickable. As previously mentioned though the power needed to cook it would probably exceed 30p , maybe I would have to cook on an open fire on the plots. (BTW lots of our plotholders live in flats)

    AB Still learning

  • Penny_ForthemPenny_Forthem Posts: 455
    Perhaps, if the H.O.C. dining room rationed their meal expenditure to  30p per person, ministers might get a flavour of what this actually means. It solves nothing, because they go home to a decent meal on the table.
    I never learnt to cook, though I could recite my Latin declensions!
    However, as a student in Hull on a mainly fish (coley was amazingly cheap) diet, followed by several veggie years, I learned to cook from scratch.
    Judging by the queues at Maccie D, some people are still able to eat 'out', but I worry a great deal about the expectations of many. My grandkids will live in a very different world and the gulf between the haves and have nots will only get wider.
    The government will soon be urging us to dig for victory.

    I'd really pay good money to see JRM wielding a spade to put food on his kids' table.
    Beautiful North Wales - hiraeth
  • EustaceEustace Posts: 2,290
    Pete.8 said:
    This morning I made 5 litres of spiced carrot and lentil soup.
    2Kg carrots £1.30
    250g lentils - £0.75
    Veg stock cube 5p
    250ml milk 15p
    Pinch of chili and pinch of cumin
    Total cost £2.25 
    I get 8 generous portions from it so that works out to just under 30p/serving
    I bought all the ingredients from Waitrose 
    It's also fat free :)
    I think the utilities bill for cooking this is not negligible.
    Oxford. The City of Dreaming Spires.
    And then my heart with pleasure fills,
    And dances with the daffodils (roses). Taking a bit of liberty with Wordsworth :)

  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    Crock pots are cheap to run,  price of a light bulb,  but children won’t eat that sort of meal these days, neither will the parents.

    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    I can’t understand how people haven’t got any money,  not even enough to feed their children.
    How much more money do people expect the government to give them.
    https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit/what-youll-get
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    Eustace said:
    Pete.8 said:
    This morning I made 5 litres of spiced carrot and lentil soup.
    2Kg carrots £1.30
    250g lentils - £0.75
    Veg stock cube 5p
    250ml milk 15p
    Pinch of chili and pinch of cumin
    Total cost £2.25 
    I get 8 generous portions from it so that works out to just under 30p/serving
    I bought all the ingredients from Waitrose 
    It's also fat free :)
    I think the utilities bill for cooking this is not negligible.
    Simmer for 15 minutes...


    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    Lyn said:
    Crock pots are cheap to run,  price of a light bulb,  but children won’t eat that sort of meal these days, neither will the parents.


    Sad but true! When I was a child if I didn't want to eat what I was given, I didn't get anything else instead. My mother was of the opinion that if I was hungry enough I'd eat it, and if not it wouldn't hurt me to go without, and she was right, it didn't, but these days some people seem to feel that they're bad parents if they don't give their children whatever they want.
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    Same here,  the meal choices were eat it or leave it. 
    Doesn't seem so long ago we had a rabbit for dinner, lasted 3 days. 
    People have been made to feel guilty about this balanced meal lark,  I didn’t have a lot to eat as a child, fruit was unheard of.  My parents lived to a good old age, I think they were better for it,  being brought up in the 30’s depression.
    not that I would in any way want things back like that,  but a little cutting down won’t hurt.
    The children get a free dinner at school, whether it’s well balanced, I don’t  know,  couldn’t afford school dinners when I was young. 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

Sign In or Register to comment.