It's getting tough out there. Feeling the pinch?

ladyholly

I don't eat any of the above. I have soup in the freezer which I'll defrost if I'm desperate, ditto curry. I am rather fond of bread, cheese, salad and cake.

Without wishing to citicise. How do you make curry if you dont cook. I assume you buy it ready made and the same with soup. The prices of ready made food is generally higher than cooking from scratch and would be out of the budget for many famillies.  Obviously I dont know what elese you eat but for someone doing a physical job cheese salad would not provide the nutrients or calories needed to stay healthy. Not everyone who has a very limited budget is retired/ unemployed.

Jellytotts

I often went without food in order that my Kids were fed, mortgage paid and clothes were on backs.  I was a single mum at the time, it was a needs must situation. 

Now I’m in a different but similar situation with a very low income and a disabled husband.  We don’t go without food, olio and the local food pantry are a huge help as is growing as much as I can myself but I can we are going to really struggle come autumn/winter with the rise in utilities.  We’ve done all we can to minimise our bills, used our small savings to have a log burner and solar panels installed and have new windows and doors.  We always follow the “heat the person, not the house” principle and that involves a hot meal at least twice a day.  Essential for DH and like another poster said, I feel cold inside if I only eat cold food like my engine only runs properly once it’s warmed up.

We are still waiting for our energy rebate from the council, they messed up our CT support last year so owe us money which means the computer System has put our account in “hold” whilst they work it out. They sent us details of how much they owe but apparently it takes the system around 21 days to catch up and make a payment….not sure they’d wait 21 days for us to pay them if the situation was reversed!

tooldle

ladyholly said:

I don't eat any of the above. I have soup in the freezer which I'll defrost if I'm desperate, ditto curry. I am rather fond of bread, cheese, salad and cake.

Without wishing to citicise. How do you make curry if you dont cook. I assume you buy it ready made and the same with soup. The prices of ready made food is generally higher than cooking from scratch and would be out of the budget for many famillies.  Obviously I dont know what elese you eat but for someone doing a physical job cheese salad would not provide the nutrients or calories needed to stay healthy. Not everyone who has a very limited budget is retired/ unemployed.

I think Rosa does cook, he/she just doesn't eat their food hot/warm. 

Wednesday2000

This discussion about hot and cold food is reminding me of that 80's (70's?) Ready Brek advert when they said eating it was like central heating for kids. Lol.

I don't mind eating cold food either, I eat a lot of sandwiches etc... my husband does find it weird as I will batch cook pasta and happily eat it cold the next day with salad on the side. I'm a fairly healthy 46 year old woman though so I assume it would be different for older people or kids as they might have different needs or just people like my husband who would prefer hot food every day.

The one thing I do notice is that I drink far more hot drinks when it is cold weather, especially when I first get out of bed or get home from being out in chilly weather. That really warms me up more than hot food would.

ladyholly

I think Rosa does cook, he/she just doesn't eat their food hot/warm. 

In that case the saving of fuel does not really apply and people who are are in fuel povety are no better off whether they eat food hot ot cold.

tooldle

I would tend to disagree. Batch cooking and portioning for the freezer to then eat cold at a later date probably does deliver a saving on fuel, when measured against cooking a hot meal from scratch every day. 
It's all relative to the type of meals prepared I guess, in the same way that one persons cheese salad will differ to the next.
Our local food bank continues to appeal for contributions, and they now specifically ask for items that don't need cooking/heating. 

London_1

I am an...older lady  and I live alone so can please myself what and when I eat. I've never been a great breakfast eater to be honest .
Sometimes I will have cereal and a chopped banana, and in the winter porridge ( I make it the way my late Mum did, with water, and steep it overnight in the saucepan, and it takes only a few minutes to cook.
I sprinkle some salt over the top and add a little milk around the edges and that is it ) But usually I have a cuppa and a couple of ginger nut biscuits that I have made. (I'm a great biscuit maker )

Lunch is usually HM soup and crackers and cheese, then a cooked meal in the evening. I have a cuppa mid-morning, and coffee mid afternoon I usually have some fruit after lunch ,an apple ot orange and after my dinner at night I may have some greek  yogurt with chopped fruit in it. I don't eat a great deal of bread as I'm not mad keen about sandwiches and if I have bread its usually  toasted cheese  or beans on toast as a snack meal.

If I fancy it I sometimes have my dinner at lunchtime, then just a light snack in the evening, (see above )  usually if I fancy  just relaxing to watch something on tv. I don't turn the TV on much before 6.00p.m. anyway.

I do have a  Sunday cooked breakfast, when I fancy it, around late morning as I go to my DD's mid afternoon as I eat Sunday dinner there in the evening. 

I doubt I could eat three meals a day to be honest, but I suppose its what you get used to.  

I don't and never have eaten between meals, as growing up with war time rationing it just never happened . As a child if you were hungry you just waited for the next meal to appear No crisps in our house , and I have rarely if ever bought crisps at all and then only for my grandchildren as they ate them.

I do like salads though, and will happily eat a salad with almost anything.
Shredded lettuce and diced tomato with diced beetroot and diced radishes and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. I never eat cucumber as to me its just water.

The last couple of days I have had salads at lunchtime with either some tuna and sweetcorn mixed with mayo or cheese and egg mayo. I liked a few diced grapes in a salad as well or some red onion chutney.

JackieO  

EssexHebridean

I think we have to be incredibly careful here (and by "here" I mean MSE generally, although it may well be that the issue is most likely to surface on OldStyle) that we don't conflate "I choose to do X" with "I can't afford to do Y". If Rosa chooses to eat food cold, that is indeed their choice. If Rosa cannot afford to heat up previously cooked food, and so takes it from the freezer, allows it to defrost to room temperature, and then eats it, that is a different, and more serious concern. I would say though Rosa (and for avoidance of doubt this is the ONLY sentence in this post specifically directed to you, rather than as part of the general conversation) that it's hard to believe that you honestly think that all people feel the same about eating hot food as you do - just being part of normal life, work conversations, discussions with friends, and indeed with family too should ensure that you are actually fully aware that the majority of people do eat a proportion of their weeks meals hot! 

I'd not been active over on DFW for very long when I saw something said that was an absolute game-changer for me - it was "I try not to say I can't afford a thing if actually, I could afford it, but I'm choosing not to in order to prioritise using money elsewhere". In the specific instance that was stated, the priority was early clearing of a mortgage - which was pretty much also where we were at the time too, probably why the message really struck me. The conversation unrolled and the person who originally made the statement enlarged on it somewhat - their feeling was that it was easy to make yourself feel "poor" by saying "I can't afford..." a lot, but more importantly it was also disrespectful and potentially harmful to those who really can't afford whatever the "thing" is. So by saying, or inferring, that we can't afford heating for example, when what we actually mean is "I could afford to heat my home (or food, or whatever), but I'm choosing not to because I want to pay more into savings/pension/clearing my mortgage early" we're deflecting attention from those who really CAN'T afford to pop a jacket potato and some beans in the microwave, or turn their heating on when they are cold, or switch the immersion heater on so that they can have a bath or shower.  The phrase "playing at being poor" is sometimes used to negatively describe those who are frugal through choice - and it's easy to risk doing exactly that, I'd suggest. As MSE is the "go-to" place for huge numbers of people who really genuinely DO fall into the "I can't afford..." camp though, it's vitally important that we're cautious around the use of our language and terminology though - otherwise we risk alienating those who need the valuable help and support available here. 

Salads can - if people choose - absolutely provide a full balance of nutrients by the way. Think about something like a pasta salad with grated carrot, diced cucumber, cherry tomatoes, maybe some diced or grated beetroot and shredded  lettuce, and topped off with some grated cheese and a couple of hard boiled eggs. Add a nice dressing and a sprinkle of toasted seeds as well, and you have a dish that gives you carbs, fats and protein plus a good amount of fibre - if you make the pasta wholemeal then this improves things even more. "Salad" is too often used to mean a sad offering of lettuce, squishy tomato and cucumber slices alongside a "proper meal" but it really doesn't have to be like that, and I bet more people would eat it if it got better marketing!  

JackieO - I learned recently that there is a proportion of people who can't taste or smell cucumber, and do indeed see it as "just being water" - it apparently has a link to the thing that some folk have of thinking coriander (leaf) tastes like soap, which is relatively common I think. it seems that many people who would agree with those two items also can't smell gorse flowers - which is rather more left field but still! Presumably something genetic that affects some people but not others - I think Cucumber has a really distinctive taste and smell! (And also love coriander and as for the smell of gorse flowers....mmmmm!) 

C_J

Great post @EssexHebridean

-taff

Home grown cucumber definitely has a better taste than sm stuff.

Good point about language. I discovered to my horror that I was actually thinking in racist terms when the blm started because I hadn't thought about the impact of language and how it's used. I am not racist by the way, or it really should be anti-human since we're all one race.