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How to eat healthily on £1 a day

bbc.co.uk

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Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#81

Post by shanev »

This article should be renamed "How to sustain yourself on £1 a day". It's amazing how the word "healthy" can mean different things based on your knowledge of nutrition. This article is a perfect example of someone whose nutritional knowledge involves skimming some articles in popular media that are laden with grain and sugar industry advertisements. It's more a recipe for getting diabetes, not being healthy.

Biscuits and margarine are certainly not healthy. On one hand you have a high glycemic, gluten-laden processed food that turns into sugar as soon as you eat it. Then you have a highly inflammatory industrial vegetable/seed oil with a very poor fat profile.

Better options are to shop at farmers markets, grow your own garden, get bulk stuff from Costco, buy cheaper cuts of meat and braise them, ferment your own veges, and make bone broth.

Good health rarely comes from a package in a supermarket. The only packaged items I buy are ghee, coconut oil, butter, and canned wild sardines.

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#82

Post by takluyver »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #71
fpp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agreed - IMHO this article again shows how removed from reality some people are and seemingly nothing is left out to polarise society further (a/k/a the poor are only to stupid - look here they can live a healthy diet on even less). a few thoughts on this article: (1) compare the energy / fat / etc in this article with the rations given to the British people during WWII and shortly afterwards - I estimate the a…

Your claims are a little surprising, at least from an American perspective. Our various welfare programs are so generous that our poor can (and often do) eat like gluttons. I was under the impression that UK welfare benefits are far more generous than those in the US - is that incorrect? (Full disclosure - I've spent a grand total of 5 days of my life in the UK, most of it in zones 1-2 of London. I know virtually not…

This is rather political. I think you can probably find something similar in both the UK and the US: some 'poor' people are getting enough money that they can afford to eat a lot of cheap, unhealthy food, while others genuinely struggle to get enough to eat. The difference in money isn't all that much when compared to factors like whether you have children, which area you live in, and which benefits you're getting.

The right uses the former group to claim that welfare programs are overly generous, and can be scaled back. The left uses the latter group to claim that the safety net is barely adequate, and should be strengthened. I'm more inclined to agree with the left; I'd rather the safety net was a bit too cushy for some than that people went hungry. In the last few years, the number of people using foodbanks in the UK has increased dramatically, for instance.

Of course, politicians regularly try to tweak welfare to reduce both extremes. But reality is too complex, and you always end up with some people not getting enough while others get more than they need.

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#83

Post by claudius »

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #61
claudius wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get by basically anywhere in Europe without a car. Sure, you might have to walk 20 or 30 minutes or so (one-way), but the wear on your shoes from that is absolutely negligible.

That is simply not true. I live in the third most densely populated country in Europe (after Monaco and Vatican City), the Netherlands. It has 1287 people per sq mile. Yet, the country has plenty of rural areas from where it takes hours to walk to the nearest town or even the nearest shop. Belgium, the UK, Germany, and Italy are ranked 4, 5, 7 and 9 respectively. They too have large rural areas. In the less densely p…

On one hand, I cannot recall a single village of more than, say, 1000 inhabitants (in Germany) which did not have a decent supermarket (Aldi, Lidl etc.) – at most, it might be at the other end of the village a few kilometers away, but, well.

On the other hand, you ignore that bicycles are perfectly fit for use as transportation, especially in rural areas with little traffic, reducing the need for a car even further. You can get as far as 20 km easily by bike (about an hour, tops), and I will be very surprised to learn of places where the next shop is more than 20 km[0]

Additionally, you ignore that the average population density of a country is no measure whatsoever of how said population is distributed – if the vast majority of the population live in villages and cities, it doesn’t matter whatsoever whether there are fifty trillion square miles of forest around them or not.

Futhermore, I have to admit that I did not necessarily consider Russia and Iceland to be part of Europe in this regard.

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#84

Post by jiggy2011 »

raverbashing wrote: post #58
jiggy2011 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WONGA, one of the most popular in the UK quotes APR of 4214%! Of course that sounds worse than it is because the loan is short term. Still though, I wish there was a more reasonable solution to this problem. I wonder how much of these rates are due to the risk involved in loaning to the sort of people who take these loans and how much of it is "because they can".

I believe that's the real tragedy (the last phrase) My bet is that most of the people that use these services couldn't make a simple interest calculation

Most of these sites will show the amount of interest due so I don't think it's so much that issue as it is the issue that taking out one of these loans increases the chance that you will need to take out another one of these loans the following month which is a much harder calculation to make.

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#85

Post by Someone »

claudius wrote: post #52
fpp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agreed - IMHO this article again shows how removed from reality some people are and seemingly nothing is left out to polarise society further (a/k/a the poor are only to stupid - look here they can live a healthy diet on even less). a few thoughts on this article: (1) compare the energy / fat / etc in this article with the rations given to the British people during WWII and shortly afterwards - I estimate the a…

I used to live on 700 €/month for three years, where I spent 310 €/month on rent (including warm water and heating for a 1-room + kitchen + bathroom flat of 40m²) and saved a further 100 €/month, plus ~50 €/month for university fees (~250 €/6 months). So I lived off (700 - 310 - 100 - 50 = 240 €)/month, which I found to be no particular problem – ~150 €/month on food, toothbrushes etc. (general groceries), 30 €/month…

Did you have a similar mix and quality of clothes at the end of tht period as at the start? Similarly, was you washing machine (if you had one) of similar quality? T.v, computer?

It is relatively easy to live on a budget starting from a position where you have all relatively new stuff, and where you have a full closet of relatively new clothes.

Also: €25 for eating out once or twice plus clothes?

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#86

Post by claudius »

Thrall wrote: post #60
claudius wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get by basically anywhere in Europe without a car. Sure, you might have to walk 20 or 30 minutes or so (one-way), but the wear on your shoes from that is absolutely negligible.

You'd have to walk for hours to check all the prices and work out the cheapest from various supermarkets though. Also, the more calories you burn walking across town to find, purchase, and carry home the very cheapest food, the more you need to eat...

Five kilometers sounds like a very sane maximum distance for shopping, which is manageable in one hour (two hours round trip). You don’t have to visit every shop each day, as the prices will be roughly the same and you can note new ones as you get to the shop the next time. Walking requires nearly no energy, compared to the standard energy requirements of the human body.

Also note that a bicycle for as little as £20 can speed up transportation immensely at nearly no cost (of course, you might want to invest a further £3 in chain lube, but, well).

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#87

Post by illuminate »

hkmurakami wrote: post #59
fpp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agreed - IMHO this article again shows how removed from reality some people are and seemingly nothing is left out to polarise society further (a/k/a the poor are only to stupid - look here they can live a healthy diet on even less). a few thoughts on this article: (1) compare the energy / fat / etc in this article with the rations given to the British people during WWII and shortly afterwards - I estimate the a…

(3) "Being Poor" and "Living/Acting (on the surface) as if you are poor" are completely different things, since the former carries not only social stigma and alienation like parent mentions, but also because these social stares and prejudices will incite all sorts of mental/psychological insecurities in a person that just aren't desirable. (4) Brings to mind the "Unfit for work" report on America's "disabled workers"…

It reminds me of Pulp's Common People, poverty tourism doesn't provide a ton of insight if you don't account/control for your ability to leave it all behind at any point.

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#88

Post by illuminate »

monkeynotes wrote: post #48
hexonexxon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1%?? Lol they charge 150% where I live until the regulators clamped down on them and class action lawsuits happened. Now it's $50 maximum per week they can charge, but they get around this with NSF fees and late charges. They also hit bank accounts with EFT withdrawal up to 3x per day if the first one didn't clear, which is $40 NSF charge each time. Unfortunately because these lenders signed a piece of paper allowing…

150% a DAY??

And the loan companies cry that it makes them impossible to do business if they're capped at still wholly usurious rates.

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#89

Post by illuminate »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #71
fpp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agreed - IMHO this article again shows how removed from reality some people are and seemingly nothing is left out to polarise society further (a/k/a the poor are only to stupid - look here they can live a healthy diet on even less). a few thoughts on this article: (1) compare the energy / fat / etc in this article with the rations given to the British people during WWII and shortly afterwards - I estimate the a…

Your claims are a little surprising, at least from an American perspective. Our various welfare programs are so generous that our poor can (and often do) eat like gluttons. I was under the impression that UK welfare benefits are far more generous than those in the US - is that incorrect? (Full disclosure - I've spent a grand total of 5 days of my life in the UK, most of it in zones 1-2 of London. I know virtually not…

"Our various welfare programs are so generous that our poor can (and often do) eat like gluttons."

Ah, the T-bone steaks and Cadillacs meme.

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#90

Post by thenomad »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #71
fpp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agreed - IMHO this article again shows how removed from reality some people are and seemingly nothing is left out to polarise society further (a/k/a the poor are only to stupid - look here they can live a healthy diet on even less). a few thoughts on this article: (1) compare the energy / fat / etc in this article with the rations given to the British people during WWII and shortly afterwards - I estimate the a…

Your claims are a little surprising, at least from an American perspective. Our various welfare programs are so generous that our poor can (and often do) eat like gluttons. I was under the impression that UK welfare benefits are far more generous than those in the US - is that incorrect? (Full disclosure - I've spent a grand total of 5 days of my life in the UK, most of it in zones 1-2 of London. I know virtually not…

"Our various welfare programs are so generous that our poor can (and often do) eat like gluttons."

This statement surprises me, as it contradicts a lot of what I've heard of poverty in the US.

Do you have a citation or several I could look at?

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