I’ve finally decided to stop tweaking it. I wrote it a few months ago and let it lie before returning this month to make a few final edits.
If you enjoy it, please feel free to share it. Comments welcome.
Month: August 2013
All in it together? A Girl Called Jack and #22mealsforacoffee
I’ve blogged previously about the amazing Jack Monroe, the blogger from Southend who talks more than a hell of a lot of sense when it comes to cooking, poverty and the politics of food on her blog, A Girl Called Jack.
She is absolutely bloody right when she writes:
“to tackle food poverty and a culture of ping-ping meals, cooking at home needs to be less glossy, less sexy, less fancy kitchen equipment, less intimidating – and more accessible, more about what you can make from what’s in the cupboard, to spend less, reduce waste, and not spending all day tarting about in the kitchen or scouring shelves for asfoedita and artichokes.”
Anyway, Jack’s been at it again with the brilliant #22mealsforacoffee.
Her challenge?
Skip one latte, cappuccino or double espresso (whatever your morning poison, basically), average cost £3, and buy someone enough food for 22 meals. Buy low cost basics (she gives suggestions) and donate them to a food bank.
Yes, a foodbank – that criminal travesty of social justice that has arisen because as a society we seem to be too damn incapable of looking after each other. The Trussell Trust calculates a 170% increase in the number of people turning to foodbanks in the last 12 months:
“Trussell Trust foodbanks have seen the biggest rise in numbers given emergency food since the charity began in 2000. Almost 350,000 people have received at least three days emergency food from Trussell Trust foodbanks during the last 12 months, nearly 100,000 more than anticipated and close to triple the number helped in 2011-12.”
The Trussell Trust is the UK’s largest provider of emergency food packs but there are of course lots of smaller, local providers, often church initiatives, as well as work done by organisations like the Salvation Army. That means those figures from the Trussell Trust are the tip of an uncomfortably large iceberg.
For those who find their take on life is disadvantaged by the cynicism gene, the sort who simply think this is about people scrounging dinner for free, just pause for a moment. After you’ve grown up, think about the indignity of having to go and ask for food to feed yourself and your family because you can’t afford to buy it. I don’t think food banks are an easy option – but they are essential if some of those who are struggling the most are to have food on their plates.
I’m not going to tell you how to put a useful food pack together here on this blog. Jack deserves the traffic on her site, so click through to #22mealsforacoffee for suggestions. If, for whatever reason, this is beyond you, text FBUK13 £3 to 70070 to donate £3 to the Trussell Trust.
Jack’s posts are a constant source of inspiration and a rallying call to action for all those who are concerned about the politics of food. Which, when you think about it, should be all of us.
It is no good relying on politicians to sort this out. It requires all of us to change the way we look at food, its costs, production, social, economic and environmental impact. Start by swapping your £3 for 22 meals and may be we might just start to begin to understand the politics and economics of food poverty.
We are often told we are all in it together. That should be a social reality, not political vacuity. We should all be looking out for each other better than we do at the moment.
Thank goodness for the Jacks of this world for giving us a sharp kick up the arse.
Planning madness: eco-hobbit home to be knocked down
So Charlie Hague’s beautiful eco-home, which wouldn’t be out of place in The Shire, is to be bulldozed within two months on the instructions of Pembrokeshire County Council because:
“”benefits of the development did not outweigh the harm to the character and appearance of the countryside“
A lack of affordable housing is one of the biggest challenges for young people today. Local authorities are often reluctant to build or facilitate it, preferring instead to take money from developers to fund future social housing developments. In a different place, at a different time. In a more ‘appropriate’ development. Rather than now, when people might need them.
We see this locally in Basildon with the proposals to build hundreds of “aspirational” homes on ancient pastures in Dry Street. Essentially, these will be unaffordable, luxury homes with a bare minimum of affordable provision. Neither the local council nor the developers have any interest in providing houses that local people can afford to live in. Instead, they are content to see greater and greater strain placed on local services and infrastructure by encouraging new people to move to the area.
Having been on a downward trend in the UK for years, the number of households in temporary accommodation has started to rise again. The long term impact of poor quality housing on health is well-documented. After four years of living in a damp caravan, Charlie Hague decided to act.
Charlie’s father owned a plot of land next to the pioneering Lammas Ecovillage. For around £15,000 he built a roundhouse out of straw bales, plastered with lime, and covered with a reciprocal roof (self-supporting, essentially). You can watch the story of Charlie’s house below:
I’ve served on local planning committees. The decisions are never easy. But retrospective planning permission is granted up and down the country all the time and for less considerate developments than this.
We should be looking to promote and support inventive and sustainable ways of building and living. This kind of construction should be championed as an example of how a new house can be sympathetic to its environment – not bulldozed out of existence.
Sign the petition to save Charlie and Megan’s house and please like, share and reblog to draw attention to the their plight.
Fragments and Reflections 