Soup
Kitchen Britain
“Are you all right mate? Are you hungry?” the woman with a
foreign accent asked me as I was returning late at night. “Here I have some
biscuits”
“No thanks I am fine” I replied as I walked on.
This begs the question of what is happening in the UK as
regards to people's nutrition. Stories abound as to soup kitchens that have
been set up and various charities are going around London distributing food.
This is a new development as previously the social security system had ensured
that nobody starved. Today however a combination of high energy bills, changes
to the social security system and inflation have ensured that for some people
having enough to eat is problematic.
Initially there was a problem of the poor eating healthy
food. In many ways somebody on benefits would have the problem of eating
healthily. For any mothers the solution was to buy the children chicken and
chips which while being the cheapest food to buy is not necessarily the
healthiest. In many cases eating healthily was the preserve of the salaried
middle classes.
Today there is a general assumption that food poverty has
returned. This is now defined officially as people spending more than ten per
cent of their income on food. In some ways this is a generalization as many
people are scrimping and scraping, and in most cases not eating very healthily.
Recently I as approached in my local supermarket and given a
sheet by my local food bank detailing the things they would like me to buy. I
bought a can of tinned vegetables and donated it to them later
“God Bless You Sir”
The woman beamed and thanked me profusely. To some extent
prior to the economic crisis this would have been considered unlikely that
anybody would be going to bed hungry. However the complexity of the social
security system and the various attempts to change it have brought about the
situation where people can often be left without a penny. The food banks are
delivering food across the country to people in food poverty
However there is also a situation where many people are
forced to rely on moneylenders who charge extortionate interest rates and take
the payments often directly from bank accounts. In this case many people are
forced to go without food. There can be a situation where people literally do
not have enough to eat
Nearby where I work is a shop that is run by a charity that
feeds the hungry. I was told by the woman in charge that they fed students with
a nutritious vegetarian soup kitchen. Students are not people traditionally
considered to be in this state as they are considered part of the privileged
classes as their degrees will earn them more money at a future date. That does
not translate into the now for the moment and many struggle to make ends meet.
Due to the plethora of loans they now get from the government they have hard
time paying all their bills and many are left in food poverty.
Normally it is rare to spot people looking emaciated. This is
not a situation such as in Africa but the malnutrition can appear in many
forms. A lot is made of the postcode lottery in this country where in some
postcodes the services do not exist and in many cases it is difficult to get a
crisis loan.
Previously soup kitchens were considered the preserve of
alcoholics who spent their money on drink and then had none lefty over. The new
users however are people who plainly do not have the money to spend on food,
let alone alcohol. The experience of food poverty has come to stay in the
United Kingdom despite the country generally regarding itself as having a
cradle to grave social welfare system. In many ways the experience is new and
as many as five million Britons are now considered to live in food poverty.
The issue of food price inflation has also contributed to the
hunger crisis in the country. This can be seen in the working and non working
alike. In most cases inflation is running rampant and in the public sector at
least and most of the private sector as well wages have been frozen. This has
resulted in a vicious circle in which living standards are steadily being
squeezed. Many of the people relying on food banks and soup kitchens are people
in work. Many jobs are low paid leaving the worker dependent on some input of
state benefits.
All of these contribute to the idea of a third world Britain
where things usually associated with images of Africa are appearing again in
our streets despite the best efforts of a welfare state created so many years
ago to provide cradle to grave social security.
