Great British Budget Menu-BBC

alfiesmum

I have a Marguerite Patten cook book reprint somewehre, that would be interesting to work out!

I think what came across in conclusion of the food programme, was not that people don't have enough money or food, but they lack skills, or desire to use said food. The single mum was said to have £2.14 each per day for food. That's £4.28 per day, that's £29.96 per week, for one adult and one child. That's a good amount. I spend £30 per week for 2 adults. I also think she had depression or something. Drinking tea all day, lost all that weight, there was more going on there than not being able to cook, bless her.

tori.k

still cheap as chips sonastin, woolton pie is still on the menu at our house mixed veg in a cheese sauce I use sliced spuds on mine, mother always used pastry i would say it's roughly 50p PP there are some great wartime housewife blogs out there.

floss2

honeythewitch wrote: »

...I wish James Martin hadn't bought one tomato and two onions because in most places you cant do this, and it is usually more expensive when you can. ...

You can do this in Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and almost any market in the UK. And buying loose is almost always cheaper than pre-pack.

Coopdivi wrote: »

... Or are you picking on the pensioner for having the audacity to spend four quid on a pouch of baccy?

raphanius wrote: »

still a luxury to a man living on half a packet of soup for a meal!...

Maybe that's why he was only having half a tin of soup, so he could buy his baccy?

raphanius

i noticed that the family were using branded sweetcorn - the most expensive kind. i don't think the program was getting to the basics of money saving which begins with down shifting to value products. they mentioned buying in pound shops and getting 4 small tins branded beans for £1 when you can get 4 large tins for £1 in a supermarket.

sonastin

floss2 wrote: »

Maybe that's why he was only having half a tin of soup, so he could buy his baccy?

At which point, he has to stop complaining that he doesn't have enough money to buy food. He doesn't have enough to buy food AND baccy - twas his choice to prioritise smoking.

I did notice he wasn't too slender around the waist for a man supposedly surviving on such a low calorie diet. Either he was a much bigger man when he was working and is slowly wasting away or the editting team was being clever in the presentation of the story once again.

Sadly those tricks chip away at the credibility of the show until the real message is completely lost.

ALIBOBSY

TBH apart from the single mum who had lost weight (I also thought there might be other issues with her not eating), they all looked pretty "well fed". If you have enough money to buy rubbish to end up overweight (and then maintain that weight) you have enough to buy better food and cook yourself.

That said there were some interesting points like when the chef was shocked by a cheap family lasagne and pointed out he couldn't make it for that price.

I was worried that this would end in a book being sold, but the programme have actually put the 50 recipes provided to the families online.
They quote details of the costings as follows:-

"In association with Great British Budget Menu, a series of legacy recipes have been created. The first step was to put together a list of the ultimate store cupboard essentials (the complete list shoppable at under £20 in a number of high street supermarkets), a variety of these ingredients can then be used across the 52 recipes, each designed to cost under £1 per portion.

The store cupboard ingredients are charged to recipes on a pro rata basis while all extra ingredients are charged at the full supermarket unit cost to reflect realistic shopping opportunities. The store cupboard is designed to last over a number of weeks."

So it actually sounds quite a sensible idea, stock a basic storecupboard and restock items as needed-this is unlikely to all be in one lot again, and you could keep an eye out for bargains/offers. The storecupboard items seem pretty logical, tinned toms, tinned tuna, salt and pepper, dried herbs, flour, pasta, rice etc. They have priced it up in the big 3 stores and ASDA came out at only £16 ish.

Worth a look and TBH if all the programme does is get peeps to cook from scratch and save money that way by using this online resource, its been worthwhile.

Thinking about it why didn't they do a second programme where they give the recipes and instructions to more real families/people to see how it works in real life, plus have guest chefs demonstrate a selection of the recipes and basic technics. Would have been much more use.

Ali x

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Tori.k

We have been trendsetting and thinking outside the box for many years in our field of business ..BUT by putting EXTRA financial strain on a business, WILL send businesses over the edge..

Yes I understand the more wages/money people get the more they will spend etc...But don't forget a huge amount of the british public have been living above their means for umpteen years, and now reality of things are hitting...

And I for one are piddled off with people on benefits that once you have tallied up what they get, including rent and council tax..free school meals etc.. are having a hell of a lot more than me, and then say they cant afford to live:mad::mad::mad::mad:

Boodle

To be frank I think it is quite shocking that people want to see protruding bones and complete lack of possessions before people have the "right" to be hungry.

If the situation is that someone has to choose to spend 25p on roll-ups or save up for an extra packet of soup a week, we don't have to wait until they are so undernourished they scrape the floor for crumbs before we acknowledge something is fundamentally wrong?

I understand editing is an issue, and the program was lacking. But, as mentioned, it seems to be aimed at people who do not realise there is a problem in this country. To combat the notion that British poverty/hunger/financial struggle at its lowest end is a myth. That as long as there is something to trade for food/cash for food there is no problem... but where is the line drawn by those who judge? Forgo the cigarette. Sell the TV and the children's toys. Once they are gone what then? How dare you complain you have no food to nourish the children - you still have two kidneys! You mean you haven't put yourself on the street corner yet, but you moan about not having enough for a butternut squash?! Jeez.

alfiesmum

So it's not possible for 1 adult & 1 child to live on £30 a week for food bills? I don't think that figure puts them in 'food poverty'. I think that example were 'food ignorant' or 'food lazy' or 'food unaware'. Or food skills lacking. Or actually in one example, depressed or something. The programme chose bad examples to put their point across. It could have been informative, but as usual, bad editing etc made it just crap tv.

ALIBOBSY

I wonder if the older guy was married and she did all the household budgeting and cooking, pretty much a common situation in older generations. I can see many gents who are then widowed, being left without a clue of how to make things from scratch, how to stretch stuff over a few meals and an idea of buying storecupboard items. So to be fair to him I reckon his fault was a lack of knowledge and it also occurred to me if he had no vehicle (likely) he would have to get his food items from local spar type shops. This means he ends up with much less for his money and without much in the way of cooking skills or ideas he gets into a rut with his packet soups.

Regarding the chickens, if you are a big family and you can minimise start up costs and can source reasonably priced feed then they can save a lot and give you a great cheap protein source as well as enabling you to bake. However if you plump for a hugely expensive initial set up and buy small bags of feed from pet stores its a waste of time. Plus for couples or small families or if you simply won't use all those eggs its again no point from a money saving angle.

For the family on the film they would have zero set up costs as it was paid for by the programme. So the first few months would all be free eggs-hope they made stuff to freeze for later to use them up lol.

After that a bag of feed to last 4 chickens around 6-8 weeks can be got around here for £8-£9 ish. Where could you get 150 ish FR eggs for £8?

I know what boodle is saying about how bad do things have to be before we say its enough, I think I got a bit mixed up with the programme after this where there was a single Mum who was a bigger lady.

I guess the message that really came about is you can cook and eat good food cheaply, but you have to shop around, get learning some cooking skills and seriously plan. Not that easy for a lot of people, not sure how easy I could shop around for the best deals and have the time to get back and cook/bake stuff without a car and access to good local shops/farm shops as well as the big stores. Would really struggle if I had no Aldi/Lidl and only could get to a Tesco.

Ali x