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28 minutes ago, MONKMAN said:


I’ve just given you two examples off the top of my head that would feed a family of 4 for 2 nights for less than a fiver in total. If the budget is £5 a night, then that allows for more spends the following night if you want, but watch this.

Chicken thighs £2
broccoli 50p
rice 50p
Spices cost less than a quid each and last for ages.
So again, we’ve mixed it up a bit tonight and fed a family of 4 for less than £5.

Now I’m not going to argue against the time factor, as that may play a large part in it. Education is also a factor, how many people just assume that eating healthy is expensive when in reality it’s not.

I don’t agree with your costing, 50p for rice? A bag is well over £1. Spices are usually over £1 as well.  However it may be that if you have other shopping options and the time to explore them then you can find things cheaper but time is a big factor as you say - in reality you go to the local or most convenient shop and see what is available for the money you have. I was was thinking more that the £5 is not per night, but just until you get paid or can source more money, whenever that is.

It’s like most things in life - there are things people experience that others can never begin to imagine or understand. I can never understand smoking or the craving that smokers get and don’t see why they just don’t stop if they hate it. Yes they can’t stop and that is something I’ll never know.

Eating when you are poor is exactly like that. Yeah you can maybe make those meals but there are so many factors that come together that people can’t understand have an impact. You can’t batch cook dinners if you can’t afford to run a fridge or a freezer to store them. You can’t roast a sweet potato with no gas or electricity. Less extreme maybe but when you have two hours between jobs then you aren’t cooking a dal because you just don’t have time or energy or you need to use money to repair your bike to get to work.

One of the biggest obesity hurdles is to actually listen to people who are obese and find out how and why they got there. Instead of thinking “I can do this, why can’t you” or just imagining it’s because they are just doing it wrong instead of recognising there might be reasons for why they do what they do.

 

Edited by Jambomo
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14 minutes ago, 19QOS19 said:

Shout out to the "Wonky" range as well btw. Cheaper only because some of the produce can look dodgy. Taste the same though and a great introduction especially for people on a budget.

Yeah, they are perfectly good stuff, just not normal shaped 🤣

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I’m stopping you right away jambomo I just bought a 2kg pocket of basmati rice for £2.20. That does about 20 servings of rice for an adult which comes in at less than 10p per portion. That is assuming you know how to cook rice which it appears a worrying number of people don’t if they opt for the packet option.

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Just now, throbber said:

I’m stopping you right away jambomo I just bought a 2kg pocket of basmati rice for £2.20. That does about 20 servings of rice for an adult which comes in at less than 10p per portion. That is assuming you know how to cook rice which it appears a worrying number of people don’t if they opt for the packet option.

That’s my point Throbber. If you only have £5 till payday or till you next get cash, you can’t spend £2.20 of it on rice unless you just want to eat plain rice (or have an onion and pepper on top for 4 days)

Costing at portion level is a big issue when people who have not lived through it talk about eating on a shoe-string.

It might be 10p a portion but if you only have X £’s for the week, that goes out the window unless it’s a full meal. Batch-cooking goes out the window for the same reason, you need to eat what you spend that money on basically immediately because there is nothing else. You can’t store it for future weeks.

 

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You can get bags of frozen vegetables that can be taken straight for the bag and cooked in about five minutes. They're very cheap (usually about a pound) and can last a decent bit. I'd be stocking up on that shit if I had a freezer!

Appreciate what Jambomo is saying. It can definitely be tough for a lot of people, but how many people does that apply to? According to stats circa 67% are overweight to some extent, but are 67% struggling for money and time?

There will always be extremes and levels of adversity, but I sincerely doubt that 67% of folk are left with just £5 to feed themselves for a week.

 

P.S. I got a loose onion on Sunday. It was 16p, although it was a red onion.

Edited by DA Baracus
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1 hour ago, Jambomo said:

That’s my point Throbber. If you only have £5 till payday or till you next get cash, you can’t spend £2.20 of it on rice unless you just want to eat plain rice (or have an onion and pepper on top for 4 days)

You're completely moving the goalposts, you originally said the following;

4 hours ago, Jambomo said:

 if I have £5 then I am spending it on the 3 for £5 ready meals and not a bag of carrots, potatoes and a net of onions - that’s not a meal.

it was also the case that I was working split shifts 6 days a week so I’d be home by 1.30pm but away again by 3.30pm. It’s much easier to shove a ready meal in the oven than to stand and prep veg and meat and then cook it. Ready meals were practical choices.

I gave 3 examples of meals to feed a family of 4 for 3 nights about £8 in total, 12 servings, whereas you said you'd rather spend £5 on 3 ready meals for convenience. Also, these meals take half an hour tops to make, is that much longer than a ready meal in the oven?

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36 minutes ago, MONKMAN said:

You're completely moving the goalposts, you originally said the following;

I gave 3 examples of meals to feed a family of 4 for 3 nights about £8 in total, 12 servings, whereas you said you'd rather spend £5 on 3 ready meals for convenience. Also, these meals take half an hour tops to make, is that much longer than a ready meal in the oven?

That is my point and the one I am making to Throbber. If you only have £5 then it doesn’t matter if you can make 12 portions for £8, I only had £5!

Throbber was talking about price per portion so I am not at all moving the goalposts, it was a different point. It doesn’t matter that it works out cheaper in bulk because you only have the money that you have and you need to use it for meals now, not over X period of time.

Ready meals were no prep, in the microwave and ready in 5mins, filled me up and required little thought or energy. I could eat something different each evening so there is variety as well. If you are poor and working lots, that’s what you want. 
 

 

Edited by Jambomo
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1 hour ago, DA Baracus said:

You can get bags of frozen vegetables that can be taken straight for the bag and cooked in about five minutes. They're very cheap (usually about a pound) and can last a decent bit. I'd be stocking up on that shit if I had a freezer!

Appreciate what Jambomo is saying. It can definitely be tough for a lot of people, but how many people does that apply to? According to stats circa 67% are overweight to some extent, but are 67% struggling for money and time?

There will always be extremes and levels of adversity, but I sincerely doubt that 67% of folk are left with just £5 to feed themselves for a week.

 

P.S. I got a loose onion on Sunday. It was 16p, although it was a red onion.

I do agree that it is unlikely that 67% are as poor as I am talking about. There are probably many reasons for being obese and this is just one of them. I think being time poor is probably a bigger issue - most of us work all day and aren’t organised enough to plan meals and cooking for dinners during the week.

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If you weren’t buying ready meals all the time then you probably wouldn’t be down to your last fiver before pay day meaning you had to buy them.  It’s lazy, and definitely not cheaper than buying fresh. 

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4 minutes ago, Rugster said:

If you weren’t buying ready meals all the time then you probably wouldn’t be down to your last fiver before pay day meaning you had to buy them.  It’s lazy, and definitely not cheaper than buying fresh. 

I had two hours between jobs, I was not being fucking lazy!

This is why there is never any point in talking about this stuff. I am not claiming that I made good choices but simply trying to explain the mindset that me and people in similar positions have.

If people don’t listen and simply call you names then nothing will change, because instead of trying to understand this situation,  people end up saying “why don’t you just do what I do” and don’t try to have a concept of the issues around it.

 

Edited by Jambomo
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16 minutes ago, Jambomo said:

I do agree that it is unlikely that 67% are as poor as I am talking about. There are probably many reasons for being obese and this is just one of them. I think being time poor is probably a bigger issue - most of us work all day and aren’t organised enough to plan meals and cooking for dinners during the week.

The time issue is definitely true for some folk, but for many others it's a choice. Some folk are choosing to work more or be distracted at home on their phone and/or laptop (work or otherwise). So many folk claim to be so busy these days, but so much of it is a choice. My immediate manager at work talks about it often but she regularly sends emails on weekends and in evenings. That's her choosing to do that (she isn't overweight though).

I'm not saying it's a choice for everyone. You've given an example of a situation you were in, and that will be something (far too) many folk will be experiencing. But, again, is that representative of the majority?

Edited by DA Baracus
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28 minutes ago, Jambomo said:

That is my point and the one I am making to Throbber. If you only have £5 then it doesn’t matter if you can make 12 portions for £8, I only had £5!

Throbber was talking about price per portion so I am not at all moving the goalposts, it was a different point. It doesn’t matter that it works out cheaper in bulk because you only have the money that you have and you need to use it for meals now, not over X period of time.

Ready meals were no prep, in the microwave and ready in 5mins, filled me up and required little thought or energy. I could eat something different each evening so there is variety as well. If you are poor and working lots, that’s what you want. 
 

 

Fortunately I've never been in that situation but I'm fairly certain if I was down to my last fiver, I'd use it better than buying 3 ready meals.  I've already shown 2 different examples of meals that can be produced for £5, that I'd imagine are healthier and taste significantly better than ready meals.

Sweet potato dahl x 4 portions (minimum) - £2 and takes 30 mins to make.

Chicken, rice and broccoli x 4 portions -  roughly £3 and takes about 30 mins to make.

There's 8 meals, that can easily be packed and frozen (if you have a freezer), so you're not having the same stuff consecutively over 3 or 4 nights.  It doesn't take long to plan or cook, its basic stuff.

Edited by MONKMAN
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When I graduated my PFCE in 200 I was close to 18st. A result of a fairly sedentary career before that and generally eating too much (especially if I was out “on the road”) Appt. in the morning! Stop at a van for a cuppa, breakfast rolls, sometimes eat my lunch as well. Lunch, chip shop/bakery. Etc.

Didn’t eat a lot of sugar but consumed large quantities of alcohol so.....

1st year of teaching I dropped to about 14st. because I wasn’t grazing all the time and I was on my feet all day.

Fast forward to now. Currently about 14st. Eating more sugars because of lack of humongous alcohol intake and I’ve not really been on my feet much. I know when I start back teaching in a week or so I’ll go from about 3000 to 12000 steps a day and I’ll be eating less too.

Don’t have a goal in mind (tbf I only know my weight because I was weighed at the doc. last week), basically if I feel healthy that’s good enough!

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10 minutes ago, MONKMAN said:

Fortunately I've never been in that situation but I'm fairly certain if I was down to my last fiver, I'd use it better than buying 3 ready meals.  I've already shown 2 different examples of meals that can be produced for £5, that I'd imagine are healthier and taste significantly better than ready meals.

Sweet potato dahl x 4 portions (minimum) - £2 and takes 30 mins to make.

Chicken, rice and broccoli x 4 portions -  roughly £3 and takes about 30 mins to make.

There's 8 meals, that can easily be packed and frozen (if you have a freezer), so you're not having the same stuff consecutively over 3 or 4 nights.  It doesn't take long to plan or cook, its basic stuff.

They are definitely healthier, not sure I’d necessarily agree on tasting better. 

Basically I was up at 4.30am to start at 5.30am. Worked till 1.30pm then 25min walk home. Had a bit of a rest from 2-3pm as I was knackered and then I’d put a ready meal in the microwave 5 mins, eat it then leave the house at 3.30 to walk to my other job for 4pm. Finished at 8.30pm when I’d walk back and be home at 9pm.

Yes, I could have probably cooked instead of resting between 2-3 but honestly, if you think someone is standing preparing and cooking food when they are working all day then you are totally wrong. Fortunately this schedule only lasted a year or so and I am very fortunate to be in a good position now.

I know mine is an extreme example but there are many people out there who have similar, if not the same, kinds of days and kinds of lives. Don’t underestimate the different issues that people face.

 

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1 hour ago, Jambomo said:

 

If people don’t listen and simply call you names then nothing will change, because instead of trying to understand this situation,  people end up saying “why don’t you just do what I do” and don’t try to have a concept of the issues around it.

 

You seem to have mistaken this online football forum for a WeightWatchers group session. The level of investment that people have on here in fatties actually ditching their excuses and living healthily is around 0.1% of the latter and only then because we all have to pay through the nose for their years of shambolic ill-health.

The idea that healthy food is inherently expensive and therefore poverty is the underlying cause of obesity in the UK is utterly risible. You will struggle to find another country in the world that has the same breadth of healthy food choices at such low prices and in so many accessible locations as in this country. This is not a food desert landscape like vast tracts of the US, where the nearest supermarket is located miles away and only chain junk food stores fill the space in between. It is also an insult to those who are perfectly capable of providing a healthy diet for themselves and their family on equally low household budgets because they haven't bought into the bullshit myth about the 'convenience' of ready-made meals.

What is needed in the country is a greater emphasis on cooking, budgeting and other mandatory practical skills in the schools system because this stuff is really not difficult to pick up at all.

 

Edited by vikingTON
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3 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

You can get bags of frozen vegetables that can be taken straight for the bag and cooked in about five minutes. They're very cheap (usually about a pound) and can last a decent bit. I'd be stocking up on that shit if I had a freezer!

Appreciate what Jambomo is saying. It can definitely be tough for a lot of people, but how many people does that apply to? According to stats circa 67% are overweight to some extent, but are 67% struggling for money and time?

There will always be extremes and levels of adversity, but I sincerely doubt that 67% of folk are left with just £5 to feed themselves for a week.

 

P.S. I got a loose onion on Sunday. It was 16p, although it was a red onion.

I get these and also the steamed rice and mixed bags.

Add some chicken and healthy meal in 2 mins prep and 5 mins microwave time.

About a quarter of the price of Nando’s.

Edited by D.A.F.C
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4 hours ago, Jambomo said:

I don’t agree with your costing, 50p for rice? A bag is well over £1. Spices are usually over £1 as well.  However it may be that if you have other shopping options and the time to explore them then you can find things cheaper but time is a big factor as you say - in reality you go to the local or most convenient shop and see what is available for the money you have. I was was thinking more that the £5 is not per night, but just until you get paid or can source more money, whenever that is.

It’s like most things in life - there are things people experience that others can never begin to imagine or understand. I can never understand smoking or the craving that smokers get and don’t see why they just don’t stop if they hate it. Yes they can’t stop and that is something I’ll never know.

Eating when you are poor is exactly like that. Yeah you can maybe make those meals but there are so many factors that come together that people can’t understand have an impact. You can’t batch cook dinners if you can’t afford to run a fridge or a freezer to store them. You can’t roast a sweet potato with no gas or electricity. Less extreme maybe but when you have two hours between jobs then you aren’t cooking a dal because you just don’t have time or energy or you need to use money to repair your bike to get to work.

One of the biggest obesity hurdles is to actually listen to people who are obese and find out how and why they got there. Instead of thinking “I can do this, why can’t you” or just imagining it’s because they are just doing it wrong instead of recognising there might be reasons for why they do what they do.

 

You can get four bags plus sliced chicken and mayo or spices for less than a fiver. Maybe turkey or tuna instead. That’s just over a pound a meal.

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Edited by D.A.F.C
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5 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

I get these and also the steamed rice and mixed bags.

Add some chicken and healthy meal in 2 mins prep and 5 mins microwave time.

About a quarter of the price of Nando’s.

Aye, wish I had a freezer! Although glad I haven't as I would have eaten so much ice cream. A mental amount and would be in worse condition than I am.

Never had a Nando's. One advantage of having no friends to eat out with, but it also seems like a massive rip off.

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