We've all noticed that food costs have increased tremendously recently. It's a catastrophic issue for people who've lived at subsistence level (unless they grow all their own food, and very few people in the world do that nowadays), but even in Europe it is having a major impact on family budgets, as this article and this story confirms.
The second story, a food diary of a single parent from Guildford, reminds me of the time when I was a low-paid single parent from Scotland - quite a long time ago. There was a time when I could feed both of us on 20 quid a week (that's 20 years ago with a boy of roughly the same age as this lady's child; before that we lived on even less). She lists the meals she and her 7-year-old eat in the course of a week. While it says something about the food, it actually says more about family interactions.
I'm not sure if maybe the mum is trying to lose weight - but she hardly ever eats the same foods as her daughter, and misses out breakfast. Even when they both have, it would seem, fresh chicken, mum and daughter eat different things. Think of the work that involves - I wonder if they actually eat together in the evenings at least?
I suspect that the daughter is a bit of a fussy feeder, what with her having pancakes every morning (says she, who's most fussy about her Kellogg's cornflakes every morning - but if I were skint, I'd be very happy indeed to have a bowl of warming porridge). The daughter seems to get two cooked meals a day - eg steak and chips for Sunday lunch, roast chicken for dinner. Is that not a bit excessive? There's also much processed food, like fish fingers, chicken nuggets, chicken burgers...That's despite mum buying a chicken every week, and treating it, it seems, much the same way as I did (roasting it one day, using the next bits of meat for different things - lasting me a couple of days, boiling up the carcase - which makes lovely soup) - but most of it goes into mum's lunches. They seem to have meat twice a day most days. Would not have thought that was necessary.
It would be good if the daughter could be persuaded off her nuggets and fingers, and they could try other food. Many other kinds of meat, eg mince, stews, can be extended with the addition of beans (even porridge oats in the case of mince, though that becomes a bit serious...) - though of course these do not lend themselves to being taken to the office (but maybe the office has a microwave?). It's not necessary to eat meat every day - my son was raised on a vegetarian wholefood diet for 3 years of his early life, and his development did not seem to suffer. She could learn about complementary protein, which vegetarians are familiar with, where grain and peas,beans, or lentils (or milk products) interact to (somehow) create more protein. Unfortunately leguminous foods do have side effects.... I don't know how many years I took cheese sandwiches to work for my lunch (oh god, they were awful - brown bread and a slab of cheese, so dry that they would glue themselves to the roof of the mouth. But needs must!).
It's great that the family has an allotment (at the bottom of their garden - what luxury!). They should be able to grow almost all their vegetables, and freeze them, or bottle them, for the winter. Leeks, and some cabbages, store themselves quite happily in the garden in the winter - as long as you can get them out of the ground!
The second story, a food diary of a single parent from Guildford, reminds me of the time when I was a low-paid single parent from Scotland - quite a long time ago. There was a time when I could feed both of us on 20 quid a week (that's 20 years ago with a boy of roughly the same age as this lady's child; before that we lived on even less). She lists the meals she and her 7-year-old eat in the course of a week. While it says something about the food, it actually says more about family interactions.
I'm not sure if maybe the mum is trying to lose weight - but she hardly ever eats the same foods as her daughter, and misses out breakfast. Even when they both have, it would seem, fresh chicken, mum and daughter eat different things. Think of the work that involves - I wonder if they actually eat together in the evenings at least?
I suspect that the daughter is a bit of a fussy feeder, what with her having pancakes every morning (says she, who's most fussy about her Kellogg's cornflakes every morning - but if I were skint, I'd be very happy indeed to have a bowl of warming porridge). The daughter seems to get two cooked meals a day - eg steak and chips for Sunday lunch, roast chicken for dinner. Is that not a bit excessive? There's also much processed food, like fish fingers, chicken nuggets, chicken burgers...That's despite mum buying a chicken every week, and treating it, it seems, much the same way as I did (roasting it one day, using the next bits of meat for different things - lasting me a couple of days, boiling up the carcase - which makes lovely soup) - but most of it goes into mum's lunches. They seem to have meat twice a day most days. Would not have thought that was necessary.
It would be good if the daughter could be persuaded off her nuggets and fingers, and they could try other food. Many other kinds of meat, eg mince, stews, can be extended with the addition of beans (even porridge oats in the case of mince, though that becomes a bit serious...) - though of course these do not lend themselves to being taken to the office (but maybe the office has a microwave?). It's not necessary to eat meat every day - my son was raised on a vegetarian wholefood diet for 3 years of his early life, and his development did not seem to suffer. She could learn about complementary protein, which vegetarians are familiar with, where grain and peas,beans, or lentils (or milk products) interact to (somehow) create more protein. Unfortunately leguminous foods do have side effects.... I don't know how many years I took cheese sandwiches to work for my lunch (oh god, they were awful - brown bread and a slab of cheese, so dry that they would glue themselves to the roof of the mouth. But needs must!).
It's great that the family has an allotment (at the bottom of their garden - what luxury!). They should be able to grow almost all their vegetables, and freeze them, or bottle them, for the winter. Leeks, and some cabbages, store themselves quite happily in the garden in the winter - as long as you can get them out of the ground!
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