Let Her Eat Clean

What does it feel like to be starving? I am diagnosed with a growth disorder caused by long term malnutrition/starvation as a child and I can tell you from experience that it is extremely painful, even at times agony. Severe malnutrition, as well as stomach pain, causes painful conditions such as abnormal bone growth causing painful and malformed joints and bowing of legs, teeth can crumble and become infected. If you are severely malnourished then you are more likely to succumb to infections, a simple sore throat and cough is more likely to progress to pneumonia. You are also very likely to be anaemic causing extreme tiredness, even exhaustion and collapse. It is vital that starvation in children has early intervention and a healthy diet provided as soon as possible or the damage done is permanent and can be disabling. I am 4 inches shorter than I would have been had I had enough to eat. My arms and legs are deformed and extremely short. This is not the fault of the parents who have, through no fault of their own, fallen into poverty.

The horror of absolute poverty has been very rare in UK since the Second World War due to the introduction of a Welfare system which provided a ‘safety net’ to catch those in need. Absolute poverty means absolutely no income or access to alternative means of support. Thousands of unincomed are currently unable to claim benefit due to new rules introduced by the Coalition government and are left in absolute poverty, this includes adults with children, disabled, sick and dying. There is currently a 2 million jobs shortfall in the UK which means that there are 2 million blameless unemployed who cannot get a job at the moment, whatever they do. There are also 5.1 million working people who earn less than a living wage (Rowntree Report) whose basic essential living costs (eg rent/mortgage, utilities, travel to work etc.) leave them with a financial shortfall and unable to buy sufficient food. Nearly a third of the UK population is currently in poverty the majority of which are working. There are currently more than 150 UK resident multi billionaires who are not paying tax and our government is failing to provide a fully functioning Welfare service, that the workers pay tax for whilst employed. Something is seriously amiss in the UK.

I applaud your attempts to provide only healthy food and that is great if it requires very little preparation, cooks very quickly, is familiar and appealing to children. Many who use the food banks do not have cookers or cannot turn them on as their electricity/gas has been disconnected due to an inability to pay their bills. I understand that some food banks are trying to provide those in such dire circumstances with camping stoves. In the light of these extreme difficulties food must be cooked quickly on a hob/camping stove. Even where those in food poverty still have a cooker and power, old, cheap, second hand, cookers can cost as much as £2.50 to have an oven on for 1 hour, including time to heat it up. People are so poor they do not have £10-£20 a week to cook their food. Please also remember many people are exhausted, unwell and extremely cold in unheated homes, many are also having to work for no pay and just receive a very low benefit which can almost entirely be used up by the cost of travel to work. This is often called workfare and is compulsory as to fail to do it, for whatever reason including childcare and illness, leads to complete loss of all benefit for up to 3 years (known as benefit sanctions) hence the absolute poverty. The food banks know best what they are able to store and what recipients of food aid can make use of. It might be better to stick to the lists provided at the food collection points, or perhaps contact your local food bank and discuss with them whether it is practical to give healthier alternatives.