Food Poverty In UK 'More Shocking Than Africa.'

             My father with his mother and some of his siblings in their vegetable garden. 

I have included the above photo as an example of poverty in 1940s Britain. My father's family consisted of two adults and nine children, they lived in a two up two down cottage surviving on meagre rations. As with many poor families, my grandmother turned her small plot of garden into a vegetable patch, the vegetables she grew saw them through many lean times.

The senior Bishop of the Anglican church, Justin Welby has opened a debate regarding food poverty in Britain. He has made comparisons between here in the UK and Africa. 

Obviously for readers familiar with my blog they will know this is a subject I am extremely passionate about. I write (rather too often probably) about the scale of food waste in this country, an astonishing 15 million tons of food is discarded annually in the UK. 

Welby has voiced concerns about food waste and the fact that over 900,000 Britons have received food parcels in the past year. He said: 'The predicament of working families going hungry in a wealthy western country are shocking!'

I couldn't agree more! Firstly this is a government and food corporation disgrace, it is not for the lack of food or resources that Britons go hungry, why for example aren't supermarkets redistributing unwanted food to charities? And how have we succumbed to the farce of sell by/use by dates, causing more waste and at the same time more money in the food corporations pockets! 

When I look at the above photo of my grandmother, I see a woman who never saw a sell by date in her life. I see a woman who was resourceful, who on one occasion had to retrieve a piece of meat from the dog who was trying to bury it in the garden. Like many families in Africa, my father's family survived on what my grandmother could make from scraps, an older piece of meat would have been washed and slow cooked, my father actually washed mould from sausages, they survived and nothing was discarded. 

And so, when Baroness Jenkin responded to the Welby debate by saying: 'Poor people don't know how to cook' it caused outrage.

Much as I didn't like the tone of Jenkin's comment, her point is valid. If people had the cooking skills that previous generations had, we wouldn't be eating so much expensive pre-prepared food. 

In Africa people are dying of starvation. National statistics last year showed that 62 per cent of all Britons over 20 are overweight or obese. The overwhelming response on social media regarding Welby's comparisons between food poverty in Britain v Africa has been that we don't know their kind of extreme food poverty. 

People who were interviewed in food banks regarding this debate seemed to be reliant on convenience food as opposed to flour, rice, grains, ingredients they could cook from scratch with. Plain unabashed poor man's food which my father grew up with, has been replaced with an expectation of prepared food from a container or tin.

Part of a traditional British cuisine were savoury dumplings, a cheap way to bulk a stew and quite often used as a substitute for meat. My own mother would make a broth from a chicken carcass, she would make dumplings which sometimes included chopped mushrooms or cheese and submerge them in the broth until they expanded and went golden on top. This meal cost pennies yet was comforting, wholesome and delicious. I don't know how many people are as resourceful as this anymore? Anyone who can discard perfectly edible food governed only by a date is not likely to boil a chicken carcass or make dumplings. 

Interestingly, prime minister David Cameron turned down £22 million from the EU to be spent on food for the most needy. Food banks are a political embarrassment and so they should be given the colossal amount of perfectly good food being discarded year on year! This situation should be a matter of importance to us all! Whilst we complacentley fill our trolleys to the brim with ready meals and snacks, we should be thinking about our ability to think in real survival terms.

Savoury dumplings

Recipe

4 heaped tablespoons self raising flour

2 heaped tablespoons suet

Mix flour and suet with enough water to make a soft dough

Form dough into balls and drop into a bubbling stew or casserole

Vegetarians can make a hearty vegetable stew and use vegetable suet

Dumplings are so versatile, you can add cheese, herbs, wild mushrooms and even jam or raisins or syrup for a sweet dumpling.

'You don't have to worry about burning your bridges, if you are building your own.'
- Kerry E Wagner

Love Donna xxxxx