Stop Telling People in Poverty to ‘shop at ALDI’
There’s an awful phenomenon these days of some media pundits and politicians who tell people who live in extreme poverty to ‘just go to ALDI and buy cheap pasta and tomato sauce’.
There are no doubt a few families that spend their benefits on McDonald’s takeaways, but not many. Despite the ads, McDonald’s is not doing that well these days, and prices have massively increased. So most people on benefits could not afford to do that anyway, even if they wanted to.
Food campaigner Jack Monroe says that once an old man told her he used to chew a little toothpaste, to trick himself that he had eaten dinner. Many people who work full-time now go to food banks, because the money left after rent and other expenses, does not pay for rising food prices.
The rise of ‘food deserts’
These are common on sink estates. Where there are no big supermarkets, and local people have no access to public transport, cars or Internet (or can’t afford minimum orders). So have to make do with what’s on offer.
Usually this is not a local farmer’s market. But instead national chains like NISA shops that offer expensive ready-meals like frozen pizza and chips.
Fast food outlets often abound (burger and kebab shops). Plus there are few places to walk, which is why people who live in poverty-stricken areas often have obesity levels higher than the rest of the nation.
Most ‘food deserts’ in the UK are in Glasgow, in England they are centred around London, the West Midlands and some north east coastal towns.
It’s difficult to eat your ‘five a day’ when the local shops only sell bananas. Some say they have never been taught to cook (in London, Made in Hackney offers free community vegan cooking classes, to use up leftovers and bargain ingredients).
Going to ALDI is not the answer
Some people (often very rich) say that such families should ‘go to ALDI’. But it’s not that simple. That requires bus fare and then buying in bulk (people on the breadline often shop daily to see how far their money can go).
Once home with their ‘cheap pasta and tomato sauce’, they have to possess saucepans and cooking tools. Salt costs money, to make food taste nice. Energy bills have soared, so they have be careful how much they cook. Many poor people don’t have fridge/freezers to store leftovers.
Again, Jack Monroe (who once lived on £10 a week to feed her and her child) says that those who ‘tell people to just eat pasta’ are missing the point. She says ‘You go to ASDA and try eating nothing but pasta for five days’. Apart from having to buy expensive brands when the value ones run out, it means families are living on plain carbs, with no proper nutrition.
We looked after a child who at night would sneak down to the kitchen and eat food from the freezer, stuffing frozen chips into their mouths. I saw with my own eyes that with three meals on the table and a lot of love, children have grown into beautiful adults. If you’ve got spare food in your fridge, share it. Jack Monroe
Journalist Kate Lister says that the old adage from Marie Antoinette of ‘let them eat cake’, has now turned into ‘let them eat dried pasta’.
MPs can claim an allowance for food and no-alcohol drinks up to £25 a night when staying away from their constituency or in London. Yet many poor families don’t even spend this in a week on food.
Please stop quoting pasta prices. You never cater for all the sauce ingredients, kitchen implements, cooking gear, energy, time. You fail to budget for competing demands of home heating, rent, water rates and council tax. Snigdha Nag
The former secretary of state for the environment suggested that poor families should look for own-brand versions (as if that had not occured to them?)
The politics of porridge
One journalist wrote that a £1 bag of porridge will last a family all week, for a nutritious breakfast.
Byline Times turned this into an article on the politics of porridge. Affluent people who have never lived on the breadline, should get their facts right, before telling other people how to live on a budget. As they write, a bag of porridge is not just a bag of porridge:
- Porridge needs fuel (expensive) or a microwave (many people don’t have one) to cook.
- It also needs a pan to cook them in.
- To make it tasty, it requires jam, syrup or fruit (unless rich people think that poor people should just live on a bowl of gruel, like in Oliver Twist).
- Most poor people rely on prepaid gas/electric meters, so their fuel bills are proportionally more than people who pay by direct debit.
- Many poor families live in temporary accommodation, with no cooking facilities. And many have communal kitchens (families with children fleeing from domestic abuse are less likely to use them).
- Many poor families live in food desserts, without cheap supermarkets. So it’s unlikely that the local shop will sell porridge. And if it did, it’s almost certainly going to be far more than £1 a pack.
