Food blogger Miss South knows from experience how hard it is to eat properly if you're on benefits
If there's one subject everyone has an opinion on, it's eating on a budget. Not the kind of budget that stretches to supermarket offers of two ready meals for £10, but one that means you're poor. As soon as poverty enters the discussion, it begins to tell us something about society in general and the way we all live. I know this because I am poor.
Serious ill health that stretches back to my teens means I am currently living on sickness benefits. Previously I've only been able to work part time or in low-paid jobs and I have also been homeless. So the subject of food on a budget is both a passion and a pressing concern for me. It also means I have some expertise on the issue.
I often stray into conversations about eating on a budget and rarely learn anything new. You hear the mantra that you can eat well on a budget from all corners, but mainly from people who don't have to do it. And yes, you can pull it off, but it's not easy.
Nonsense, I hear you say: get a slow cooker, eat lots of pulses, shop around and it's simple. Except it isn't. There's usually a reason why you're poor and unless it's that summer between finals and your first job, it tends not to be short term. In the more than 13 million people in the UK considered in poverty by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, one of the highest risk factors is having someone disabled or chronically ill living in them. At least a third of disabled and ill people live in poverty. Other reasons for poverty are being a pensioner, carer, low income working family or an under 25 who will get less in wages, tax credits or benefits. Unemployment benefit is under £75 a week. On a budget like this, you have to count every single penny. The cost of petrol or bus fares required to shop around is money you'd just spend on food if you had it in the first place. If you're lucky you've got a market or local independent shops nearby. If you're not it's the village shop or a supermarket where there's often a lack of fresh foods and a hefty mark-up for convenience.
I am lucky. I live within walking distance of one of the best markets in the UK. When I lived five miles either way and worked long hours, it was much harder to budget and buy decent ingredients. I shared a tiny kitchen with five people, had only £10-15 a week for food and found it cheaper and easier to buy chips and processed food, or even skip meals. Trying to cook from scratch robs food of all pleasure at that point when you can't even afford salt and pepper and the supermarket just reminds you of everything you can't have. Fresh food goes off and, after a while, frozen spinach just tastes of desperation and exhaustion.
These days I have a freezer and a slow cooker. One took up my entire savings, the other was a birthday present and neither was something I could just have the minute I needed them. They do allow me to budget better and eat well and I would struggle without them. I can spend around £20-25 a week on food with a stocked store cupboard and don't have to eat the same thing day in, day out. But it is the biggest single outlay of time and energy for me in a week and if I had a job with long hours, or children to look after alone, I couldn't do it all the time.
In fact, I don't manage to do it all the time, even now. On a bad week filled with pain and fatigue, I can't concentrate on cooking. Food becomes fuel, something so background it's literally beige. Oven chips, hummus, wraps, breaded things. No prep, no pressure. When everything in life is overwhelming, sometimes your diet needs to not be challenging. There's something sedating about that which kale just can't offer.
Even when you're feeling more in charge, food takes on extra resonance when you can't afford many other pleasures. You know that you should resist the instant gratification of a doughnut, but you don't know how long you'll have to wait before you can get out of the house again, or do any of the things non-poor people do to reward themselves with, and so you find yourself giving in. Food breaks up the monotony and can transport you to times and places you felt happy. It shouldn't have emotional significance, but poor people shouldn't be asked to be completely different in their responses to food to others. You just can't win. If you buy multi-packs of crisps, you aren't trying hard enough and if you stock up on leafy greens, oily fish etc then you get too much money and aren't really poor.
I love cooking. I grew up in a family where everyone cooked and I associate it with pleasure. Shopping for food is my social life as I try local shops, Polski Skleps and online retailers. It gives me something to talk to people about, but having to weigh up and justify my choices constantly due to my finances reminds me how far I am outside society sometimes.
Miss South blogs at northsouthfood.com