Cameron's Britain - Food Poverty

In recent months we have seen news stories about the increased use of food banks and an increase in conditions like rickets all because people can not afford food in their diet. More and more and more working people are falling into poverty in the UK. All this in a country that is one of the richest in the world. This is Cameron's Britain, his legacy for the nation.

Although we have seen unemployment falling with people taking part time work to get off of benefits, so have wages in real terms while food prices continue to increase. This has resulted in an increase in the numbers of people on low wages are not earning enough money to meet their most basic nutritional needs for maintaining a healthy diet. While wages are starting increase now, for the first time in years, these aren't increases aren't being seen by those earning the lowest wages in their pay packets, they are wage increases for those that are already well paid. Personally I know of many people that haven't had a pay rise in the last five years at all.

In the last year there have been a three fold increase in the number of food parcels being given out to people who can't afford to buy food compared to the year before. These parcels go to families that don't have enough money to feed themselves and they are either referred by Care Professionals, the Police or Citizen Advice Bureau in most instances. This rise in the usage of food banks has partly been due to delays in benefit payments caused by the introduction of the Universal Credit System, but that is not the whole story and it is not just the unemployed or those on benefits who are using them. Increasingly there are more people on low income or debt getting parcels.

Things are continuing to get worse and now food poverty in the UK is becoming a public health issue of the future. The UK Faculty of Public Health announced that poverty is forcing people to have dangerously poor diets and is leading to the return of rickets and gout, basically diseases of the Victorian age that affect bones and joints. The public health professionals' body have called for a national food policy as concerns rise over malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies in children. This has led them to ask all political parties to back a living wage to help combat illnesses and malnutrition in the UK.

At the extreme end of the spectrum Doctors and hospitals have seen a rise in children suffering from ailments caused by poor diet which has been linked the trend to people's inability to afford quality food. According to the latest figures show there has been a 1nineteen percent increase in people hospitalised in England and Wales for malnutrition over the past twelve months. The Faculty of Public Health has warned that ill-health arising from poor diets was worsening throughout Britain "through extreme poverty.

The increase in cases of gout and malnutrition being seen in hospital admission statistics are manifestations of specific dietary deficiencies caused by poor diet in the poor. With food prices up twelve percent, fuel prices up double-figure percentages and wages down since David Cameron's Government came to power poor people are starting to eat unhealthily. People on low incomes are left with the problem heating and lighting their homes or feeding themselves and their children. In the end they are doing neither of these things well as there isn't the money to do both.

Currently the UK has 3.8 million children in extreme poverty and there is a growing need for food banks because of Government policy and the fact they are failing to acknowledge there is a problem at all. The one of biggest group of users of food banks are hard working poor families who have lost benefits, live on low and declining wages and or they have fallen foul of draconian benefits sanctions. This is a disastrous and damning indictment on current welfare policy and a shame on the nation. The Faculty of Public Health said of food banks that they are "providing a real and valued service" and that they are "actually keeping people alive."

David Cameron has hailed food banks as a happy example of "big society" where charity's provide for Government defiances and cuts. Former Education secretary Michael Gove suggested that food bank users were themselves to blame, guilty of taking decisions that showed they were "not best able to manage their finances". While Duncan Smith, secretary of state for work and pensions, said he "welcomed" the work done by local food bank initiatives, but then he would since the free food saves him having to increase benefits to a level where people can feed themselves.

The whole situation reminds me of the scene from the musical Oliver where Oliver after daring to ask for more gruel is dragged by the ear by Mrs. Corney, the matron at Oliver's workhouse, to the room where the Mr Bumble, a beadle in the workhouse, is enjoying a large roast dinner with the benefactors of the workhouse who are shocked the at the half starved malnourished boy asking for more food. In this case Mr Bumble is David Cameron and the benefactors are the people that keep him in power and who are blind to the problems of the real world.

One of the functions of a Government in a country as rich as the UK should be to feed it people and in that respect David Cameron's Government has failed to meet the grade with people being reduced to fall back on charity. What is worse is the fact we are starting to see a return of health conditions that were a thing of past due to malnourishment. This frankly disgraceful in this modern age in a country such as this. Maybe a new slogan for the Conservative party at the next election could "Vote Conservative and Starve".

Think, don't bin it (Food Poverty)

The levels of food poverty in the world continue to be a problem and one that we never really see unless it is thrust in front of us on some charity night on the television. Then we make our donation and that makes us feel like we have done our bit and carry on without thinking about. The reason we don't think about it is we live part of the world where the supermarkets that are full of food, with the only indicator that there are those without food is a generally a collection point for the local food bank.

This carrying on without thinking in Britain means we throw away 7.2 million tons of food every year from our homes, let alone what gets thrown away by supermarkets and the food industry which takes the total up to 15 million tons. In terms of food brought for the home, that is almost fifty percent of food and drink that we buy and it is estimated that at least half of this we could have used. The reason it occurs is that we either don't use it in time or we prepare too much food and waste it. The thing is we don't have to waste this food. Not doing so would at the best help reduce prices and help the environment by reducing the use of landfill. It would also save us money, about £60 a month for the average family according to research.

Globally over the years we we have found ways to increased irrigation and improve fertilization which results in increased food production, however the world still has been consumes more food that it is able to produce and the problem is getting worse. This is not helped in some of the poorer counties by producing food for rich counties which then waste the food. In fact, Britain can't feed it's own population and foolishly we continue to build on agricultural land reducing our food production capacity. As global warming takes hold we will find can't rely on imports from our current suppliers in warmer counties and prices will rise.

Avoiding talking about the future for a moment and looking at the current situation, a lots of vegetables are wasted each year in Britain and lot of this food imported from around the world and not grown in the UK. In fact 50% vegetables are imported and 95% of fruit. Some of these countries that grow the food are themselves unable to feed their own populations. If we didn't buy the food and waste it then the land in these countries could be used for feeding the ingenious population as well as providing food for world markets. It made worse in some counties such as Kenya which grow flowers for the UK market on land that could be used for producing food. Something we could all grow in our own garden.

Another problem with the Britain is over consumption of food by the population as a whole which deprives people in poor countries of food. In the UK current 25% of the population is obese and another 37% are overweight. Basically people are consuming more food than they require this goes on the body as fat which is used by the body for times when food isn't so plentiful, evolutionary this was important given the nature of natural food production. However, we aren't using the bodies storage system in the wrong sort of for use in the UK food is plentiful and we do this at the expense of the poor counties of the world. We are not the worse in the world, the US probably tops that league, but it something to think about when we but extra food we don't need.

Clearly over consumption and waste the food in the UK and other rich counties is a big issue and it does lead to food poverty in other parts of the world just because they produce food for us rather than themselves. The reasons this occurs for this are complex but we can all do something about it in our own little way. Here some of things I came up with:

• Look at what you buy and workout where you are wasting food by putting it in the bin, then plan your menu for the week accordingly to avoid waste and save money. Think every bit of food you put in the money is money you are throwing away.

• Check your not wasting food because you are cooking too much food and at the end of the meal you are just scrapping your pennies into the kitchen bin. The land that food was grown on could be used to feed someone else and food not consigned to a landfill.

• Buy British where possible and if that isn't possible seasonal food produced in Europe, this will encourage the governments of poorer counties to grow food their own population. It also has the side effect of supporting the national and local economy by keeping money in Britain if you buy British.

• Encourage supermarkets to put ethics before profit and support the fair trade movement, which makes sure the farmers get a fair price for their the food they produce. This puts more money into the economy of the poor counties meaning people have the money in these counties to buy food.

• Educated yourself and your children not to waste food or eat food they don't need, this will reduce obesity and save the the country a fortune in weight related health issues. It is good for everyone and good for the future of the country.

• Avoid buying produce like flowers from counties that are short of food, especially those in Africa to encourage proper land use in these countries, this also has the effect of helping the environment too by reducing air freight.

• Check you are storing your foods correctly and remember best before dates are manufactures recommendations of when the food will be at its best not an indication of when it has gone off. Check your senses as well as the dates on the food before you throw it away.

• Finally go through your cupboards and look at the dates of those tins you have pushed to the back and forgotten, they might be reaching there best before dates. You have two choices when you find them, either use them or give them to the local food bank. Food poverty is an increasing in problem in Cameron's Britain with decreasing standards of living and cuts to the welfare system.

Clearly there is a lot we can do individually at home to save food and prevent waste but there is more we can do as a country too. The Governments around the world do there bit by advising and giving advice on food growing technology to other counties, but this comes at a price for the poorer counties. The technology is often produced or manufactured in the the richer countries and requires foreign currency that can only be earned from selling the food it is used produce back to the richer counties. We as a world need to put pressure on the richer counties to do more and help find local solutions for the poor counties, stop eating their food and do all than can to make food poverty a thing of the past. It is a big problem and it requires a lot of thought to solve but I'm going to try and do my bit.