A study by the UK’s biggest food bank network, Trussell, estimates one in seven of the UK population are struggling in a category of deep poverty it calls “hunger and hardship”. But what does it mean, who is affected by it, and why?
What is hunger and hardship?
The term was created by Trussell to define a group of 9.3 million people (including 3 million children) whose low household income and financial vulnerability makes them most likely to be using food banks or at risk of using them.
Essentially, they’re saying people who use food banks are in this hunger and hardship. Which means that before 2000 – about when food banks started in hte UK – there were none in hunger and hardship. Which doesn’t really strike as a useful measure TBH.
Further, we end up in the odd position that someone whose hunger is alleviated by gaining access to a food bank is now defined as being in hunger for having had their hunger alleviated. Not a wholly useful measure TBH.
Finally, food banks are that new technology. So, we’re defining hunger as having risen at the very time that the new tech is reducing it. Not a useful measure TBH
’…the UK’s biggest food bank network…’
Biggest fakecharity and left-wing lobby group, actually.
The cynic in me would have imagined the official numbers would have started declining now the adults were in charge again…
On the one hand foods is so cheap we are an island of land whales and prod-noses should be given the right to tell us what and when we should eat, on the other hand ~15% of us are close to starvation and need free food.
I’d love to one of Spud’s “Venn diagrams for our times” showing the overlap between land whales and food bank customers.
Not wishing to nit-pick, but how are food banks “new technology”? They seem very low-tech to me.
A technology is a way of doing things. We didn’t have food banks in the UK before 2003 (?). Then Trussell Trust brought that way of doing things in from the US. It’s a tech, a way of doing things.
Give away free stuff, don’t be surprised when people turn up to take it.
Give away free stuff (or money, preferential treatment, etc.) to people who must fit certain criteria, don’t be surprised when the number of people who fit those criteria balloons.
Thomas Sowell recounts that when affirmative treatment was afforded to “Native Americans’, within a few years more adult ‘Native Americans’ were claiming it than had existed when they would have been children. All of a sudden, ‘Native Americans’ appeared out of thin air.
And so it will be with “hunger and hardship”. Seek (read ‘encourage’) and ye shall find it.
These idiots can’t see a pudding without over-egging it can they?
If they said there were 100,000 people – mostly single mothers – struggling to feed their kids properly I might buy that, though I’d blame low IQ, terrible education, and money being misapplied to put it kindly.
My solution would be to devolve this all to the cities (and towns and villages): if (for instance) Scousers want to pay child benefits to women who have five children by five different men, and also to continue to pay those men benefits (or tax them at the same levels as responsible men), then fine… they just need to pay for it.
Food banks because people are desperate for food & on the brink of starvation etc etc.
Meanwhile everywhere you walk in countryside / woodland is heaving with brambles/ raspberries/ blaeberries/ rabbits yada yada.
When our elder generations were actually genuinely hungry and food purchases composed more than 10% of the household budget, all this free food was taken whether in stews jams or whatever.
So as long as the overwhelming majority are walking past free food because its too much hassle, I’ll continue to think foodbanks are a combo grift & feelgood for virtue signallers.
Co doing something says give should give them taxpayers money. Grifters shocker.
Not even people actually using food banks, but ‘at risk of’ and other such bullshit words.
Not even sure who is worse, those scamming free food when they don’t need it, or those leveraging that for fat incomes.
There are some genuinely in need, we should focus on helping them through their temporary crisis and not the majority.
People “at risk” of using a food bank, yeah, this is quite a crisis they’ve identified.
A cynic might wonder if everyone who uses a food bank is actually desperate, you know, perhaps some people will take free food to save their cash for other fun things? Of course, the article writer wouldn’t dream of looking into that.
Whenever they bother to look behind the curtain it turns out that “poor” people have decent housing, cable or satellite TV, kids have the current video games, etc.
Norman
You do remind me of the Tasmanians. When I was a lad, so long ago, I was told that we wicked whites exterminated them.
Then when they could get cash for being an abo, I was startled at how their numbers rose so rapidly from zero.
“If they said there were 100,000 people – mostly single mothers – struggling to feed their kids properly I might buy that, though I’d blame low IQ, terrible education, and money being misapplied to put it kindly.”
I know of a case thats fits your description perfectly – the daughter of one of my late father’s carers (my mother is still in touch with the carer and I get the latest horror stories relayed to me). The carer is an immigrant from South Africa, her daughter (not born here) has ‘mental health problems’ and is a single mother living on benefits (of course she must be a very rare case, as we all know 99.99999% of immigrants are incredibly hard working and contribute massive amounts of tax revenue to the Exchequer) and just doesn’t have the mental capacity to cope with dealing with modern life.
For example after the energy price hikes of 2022 her electric kept going off because she’d run out of credit on her meter, but she hadn’t bothered to apply for the free extra energy payments that were available to all on benefits. She’s currently struggling to visit the hospital for regular appointments because some jobsworth at the council said she couldn’t have a free bus pass any more so its costing her £3 each way on the bus and she has appointments 2-3 times a week for an ongoing health issue. Its quite possible she does qualify for one (the list of who qualifies for one runs to several pages of A4) but she wouldn’t have a clue how to go about convincing some council employee that she does indeed qualify for one.
She is exactly the sort of person who would end up at a food bank, not because the State does not provide for her, but that she lacks the ability to manage either the process or the funds once given them.
The group of people defined as our customers need MOAR TAX spent on them.
With the passing years it’s not the arteries but the heart that gets harder.
I volunteer at a Trussel foodbank and another local facility in a very impoverished town.
Some clients, particularly the elderly, are hugely grateful for the help while struggling to come to terms with their perceived shame. In every case you can point the finger at bloody fuel prices which for people of limited and fixed incomes has simply devastated them.
However the majority, often younger, unmarried with kids and with no visible sign of missing meals (quite the reverse) see it as part of their lifestyle while clearly possessing enough cash for phones, cigarettes and label clothing. I often carry several bags outside to be loaded into a better and newer car than I drive although in mitigation there might only be a couple of pints of petrol in the tank.
At the extreme level is a facility based in a disused church where queues form up five days a week to pick from whatever has been donated by local supermarkets. What the hell is the answer? I don’t know but these are people who either don’t know or have forgotten how to feed themselves in a conventional sense.
@John
At the extreme level is a facility based in a disused church where queues form up five days a week to pick from whatever has been donated by local supermarkets. What the hell is the answer? I don’t know but these are people who either don’t know or have forgotten how to feed themselves in a conventional sense.
To attempt a halfway serious answer to what appears an intractable and Hydra-like interlinked problem, John, we need to get hard-hearted. Spare the rod and spoil the child applies to childlike adults, too.
If I were a dictator I would close all foodbanks. Eminently good and decent people such as yourself who know who really needs it can deliver the food to those few, and find your reward in heaven.
The rest will need to find a way. Finding a way would be good for them, and their kids: seeing your mother sitting around all day playing Candycrush is no way to grow up.
The Hydra includes immigration, benefits more widely, the education system, the size of the state, prison places, and more.
I can’t get out of my mind the feeble joke “Trussell Group Universities”.
TW: “They’re saying people who use food banks are in this hunger and hardship. Which means that before 2000 – about when food banks started in hte UK – there were none in hunger and hardship.”
Err, no. Non sequitur.
Some other imbecile: “Food banks because people are desperate for food & on the brink of starvation etc etc. Meanwhile everywhere you walk in countryside / woodland is heaving with brambles/ raspberries/ blaeberries/ rabbits.”
Jesus Christ.
Jim @ 9.50, ” She is exactly the sort of person who would end up at a food bank, not because the State does not provide for her, but that she lacks the ability to manage either the process or the funds once given them”.
Plus those who don’t have the skills (mental) or facilities (internet) to be able to claim in the first place:
I watched a GBNews segment where Ben Habib was explaining just how difficult it is to claim for this stuff.
Kevin “Toilet” Maquire was sneering throughout and didn’t believe anyone would struggle to get it . Cunt.
I wonder if part of the new technology is being able to harness the time rich capacity of altruistic 55-67 year olds, retired early, sick of working full time in public sector no doubt because of the conditions.
It’s true the countryside is teeming with free food, seasonally. Trouble is, you need country skills to get at it.
Rabbit? You need a dog or a gun + gun licence, or be prepared to set illegal snares.
Blackberries, blueberries? Quite time consuming and not very filling, but good for the vitamins.
Mushrooms? Field mushrooms are unpredictable, and woodland mushrooms are russian roulette.
Most people lack these skills because they live in towns. There is surely an opportunity to expand the allotment acreage and teach people how to grow vegetables.
Spiro dozer -.food doesn’t come from the shops – Jesus- you think urban ignorance is a modern Myth then a belter comes along to prove its true – they do live amongst us.
It’s not just the country, its canalsides, town parks, verges etc etc.
At one point when people were genuinely poor – these were all harvested, you couldn’t live off them but they were a valuable top up, cos food was expensive & scarce.
The point is they’re not harvested now because modern agriculture has made food so cheap its not worth most people’s bother helping themselves to frre stuff- now they need to be handed free stuff prewrapped.
Behavioural changes in society are a bit of a clue as to scarcity.
Addolff
The thought of agreeing with Kevin Maguire over Ben Habib repels me.
Unfortunately my experience at the sharp end suggests it isn’t all that difficult. Generally foodbanks provide support for a set period on receipt of “referral vouchers” from DSS etc. Allegedly they can also bend the rules using their judgement where justified although of course I have never seen this happen.
However for those unwilling or unable to apply there is still the final safety net I referred to above which is available to everyone every(week)day. Our local one is definitely not unique.
As for food poverty LIDL and Sainsburys offer large “leftover” boxes of various perfectly serviceable veg for around £1.50.
One of those turned into soup, sauces or even as the main meal can feed a couple of people for several days. It’s just that too many of the “food poverty” types prefer takeaways and microwaving to actual cooking.
Not true. You can quite easily take rabbit with an air rifle, and you don’t need a licence for that (except now in the Peoples’ Republic of Jockistan.) You do of course need landowners permission to be on his land with a weapon.
John @ 2.32, the argument was about pensioners being able to claim pension credit………..
As I always say, I’d rather live in a country like the UK, with a couple of thousand foodbanks, than in the Republic of Venezuela, which has none.
You just have to block your ears to the barmy argument that the existence of those foodbanks in the UK indicates hunger, while the lack of them in Venezuela indicates its absence.
Over the summer until about three weeks ago, I was pigging out on blackberries. Every day when I got home I’d get about 250g off the bushes along the scrabby area I call a garden. Walking to the bus stop I’d strip the road-side bushes of a few handfuls as snacks. Just as I used to as a kid on the way to/from school.
Addolff
Thank you. Sometimes I think I must have an arse for a brain nowadays.
If someone is doing something you shouldn’t assume that they’re stupid and doing something stupid.
These people are using this measure because it suits their purpose – they’re ‘problem solvers’, but the problem with solving problems is if you solve the problem then you don’t need to pay and give power to the problem solver.
So if you define the problem in a way that creates a problem that didn’t exist or makes it impossible to solve – well, that’s *useful to the problem-solver*.
It sucks for the rest of us but problem-solvers don’t really care about anyone except themselves.
John said:
“Generally foodbanks provide support for a set period on receipt of “referral vouchers” from DSS”
I thought originally the food banks helped anyone, and found that many (most?) of the people asking for help had fallen through the gaps of State provision, or were waiting for the State to process them.
Wasn’t there some discussion here about the evidence suggesting that the main cause of serious poverty was State incompetence?
So when did food banks switch to only helping those approved by the State? And was this for political reasons?
“So when did food banks switch to only helping those approved by the State? And was this for political reasons?”
I doubt it. I mean if you are giving away free food then you want to have at least some idea that its not all being taken by people who don’t need it. And the food bank staff on the ground aren’t going to be able to do that are they? How would they be able to decide if the person standing in front of them really needs food to feed their kids, or is a total chancer after freebies? So having a voucher system that can be doled out by the sort of people who come into contact with those who have fallen through the cracks makes sense. Doctors, social workers, teachers, those sort of people, and yes they do tend to work for the State, but I don’t think that was the intention. Its not an ideal system for sure, and is certainly abused, but without it those in real need would get nothing because it would have been taken by the greedy masses before they could get anywhere near.
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