It's unfathomable to me that people in the UK are skipping meals. If you buy rice & beans in bulk you can fill your belly for less than £1 I'm sure. Quick look on the Tesco website

- bread: £0.39 £0.05/100g

- chicken soup: £0.60 £0.15/100g

- 1KG rice: £0.48 £0.48/kg

- Baked beans: £0.50 £1.19/kg

- Kidney beans: £0.59 £2.46/kg DR.WT

- Tinned mackerel: £0.85 £0.97/100g DR.WT (sardines are half the price)

- Eggs: £0.20 / piece

- 500g pasta: £0.41 £0.82/kg

People are probably just used to eating take-out or buying £8 microwave dishes for the whole family and don't know how to cook on a budget.

If you're really desperate, markets usually put aside vegetables that are too old to sell but you can make soup out of them no problem.

This all isn't very appealing or even healthy (although compared to microwave or takeout ...), but at least you're not going hungry.

If you can only send your kid to school with 1 slice of bread, you have other problems than money.

Someone posts this comment every time the subject is mentioned; someone else posts the Orwell essay from the 1940s which replies to the exact same discussion; and yet the kids are still turning up hungry. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/nov/03/expand-fre...

> It's unfathomable to me that people in the UK are skipping meals.

It is when you consider many people simply don't know how to cook simple, healthy food. Our schools no longer teach basic cookery (and many parents neglected to pass on the skills).

> and many parents neglected to pass on the skills

Or more likely were never taught those skills, either.

Regarding supermarket prices, I've done the same calculations and even made a game of it when I was at university[0].

Per calorie you can do similar with value brand digestives.

However, so far as I can see in the reporting, many people in the UK really are that short of money — It's not just not being able to budget right (dyscalculia is a thing, but not common enough to explain current observations by itself).

I also think that, just as pubs are required to supply free water on request[1], they should also supply free unflavoured lentils-and-rice on request, given how cheap it is.

> If you can only send your kid to school with 1 slice of bread, you have other problems than money.

They do indeed have other problems than money — money is also a problem, just not the only one.

I was going to add that a significant number can't even manage as much as one slice of bread, however all the news I can find specifically about schoolkids skipping specifically breakfast (and not the generic mass hunger I previously gave examples of) turned out to be reporting the same two studies by two different foods companies so I don't trust that factoid.

[0] 20 years ago: breakfast was Quaker oats with skimmed UHT, sugar, and whichever dried sultanas or raisins was cheaper; skipped lunch; dinner was Chinese instant noodles from Lidl at 13p per pack; total daily was about 50p

[1] I'm told the law is more complicated, but in practice this is observed

It's possible to have 0 dollars after paying other bills before your next grocery shopping trip so no matter how cost effective these things are they won't help. Once you're behind on rent or mortgage and gas bills and electricity bills and loan payments and credit card debt is racking up 20% interest and you're using every cent you have to stop those creditors from coming after you your only option is to cut down on other costs, even if they are relatively important, like food.

In my experience, the average British person has no idea how to cook a square healthy meal that is also appetising enough for them to choose it over other easier options. Cooking is taught poorly (if at all) in schools and at home.

This isn't about money. We have 64% of the adult population overweight and obese, 22% at age 5, and 37% at age 10. All those numbers are growing.

The excuse often brought up is that it's "expensive to eat healthy". Absolute bollocks. It's far more expensive to eat ready-meals, order takeaway, and dine out than to buy ingredients and cook.

For snacks, a banana costs £0.15 and fills you up for longer than a £1.00 chocolate bar. But people want the chocolate bar!

I've lived in a city centre apartment block for the last few years. The frequency with which I've seen the people around me having McDonalds, burgers, pizzas, and other oily, salty, high fat, high calorie food delivered shocks me. For some people, it's upwards of 5 times a week!

If you go to a "local" or "express" supermarket, microwavable ready meals and junk food represent most of the aisles, and when you take a glance at the shopper next to you, they are buying mostly junk and inconvenience food.

If you go to a supermarket after school closing time, you'll see tens/hundreds of kids buying energy drinks (despite the age limit), multipacks of chocolates, biscuits, sweets, crisps, 1 litre bottles of pop. Evidently, they have the money for it (from their parents). University students across the country keep fast food and takeaways in business via their student loans and grants.

When people here do cook, it's:-

1) Stir fry 2) Spaghetti Bolognese 3) Pasta and sauce dish 4) Something on toast/jacket potato

Every meal that gets microwaved in my office for lunch is one of these 4 things. Basically just throwing a bunch of stuff in a wok and mixing for 10 minutes.

This is of course all anecdotal, but it's plain as day that it's about personal choice for many people, and not money. Our country has a serious problem with food and alcohol addiction, and an extreme aversion to exercise. Most people would wipe out their life savings/all of their income to eat slop as much as possible, at the detriment to their finances and health.

Every stage of British life, from infanthood, primary and high school, to university and beyond prepare the population for gorging on high energy, salty, oily junk food.

We will easily hit 75% overweight/obesity by the end of the decade.