The myth of starving Britain...

[Lord Beria3]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/artic ... itain.html

This week, a charity called Church Action On Poverty launched a poster campaign that says ‘Britain Isn’t Eating’, mocking the Tories’ famous 1979 election campaign poster ‘Britain Isn’t Working’ that helped Margaret Thatcher to victory.

This time, the charity claims, the long queues are not for the dole office, but for food banks. ‘Thousands are going hungry because of benefits changes,’ it protest. I thought of those posters when I read the story of Katie McGill, a 28-year-old unemployed single mum.

In an interview this week, Katie claimed her benefits payments soon won’t leave her enough to buy food and basic necessities for her two children.
Another victim of ‘cruel Tory cuts’? Hardly.

This Christmas, Katie gave her two children Mya-Renee, three, and Calvin, eight, two new bikes, TVs, DVDs and numerous computer games — all paid for after she took out eight payday loans that have left her £3,000 in debt.

Sadly, a political and ideologically driven campaign has been led by the 'usual suspects', charities and the left-leaning Church of England to make out that there are huge numbers of people who can't afford to eat.

Funny they say that because having watch documentaries of food centers, the MAJORITY of the people going there for free food are OBESE. Clearly not that starving! And then you get the feckless poor like the lady in the story above.

[woodburner]

Funny they say that because having watch documentaries of food centers, the MAJORITY of the people going there for free food are OBESE. Clearly not that starving! And then you get the feckless poor like the lady in the story above.

I had noticed there were a large proportion of lardys. But they would probably either claim it was genetic, or that someone else was to blame.

[RenewableCandy]

It's the DM's job to convince people that there is not a poverty problem in the UK. They seem to be doing so well that they're even beginning to convince the poor that they're not poor.

And if "The Church" (as a whole, not just a few individuals within it) is "Left-Leaning", I'm a Dutchman.

[AndySir]

Not wildly convinced that the British Medical Journal is one of the leftist cabal either.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 81051.html

[woodburner]

...a decrease in calories consumed by British families.......

May be a good thing for many. Decades ago calories consumed were generally lower than today. If the calories are mainly refined carbohydrates, that's pretty unhealthy.

[vtsnowedin]

I've noted that the US MSM seems unable to do a story about hunger in America and interview someone that looks hungry. Instead they interview some food shelf keeper that is an axe handle and a half across the butt that has a hard time waddling between two rows of shelves without knocking cans off both sides. The narrative says one thing the pictures tell quite another.

[PS_RalphW]

The sad fact is, the mostly likely place to find malnourished people in Britain is in the geriatric ward of the local hospital. On the long stay wards.

You can be both obese and malnourished, and many poor people are, because they
A. Cannot afford good food
B addicted to fast food
C don't have facilities to store or cook real food
D wouldn't know good food if it bit them

Take your pick

[Tarrel]

I've noted that the US MSM seems unable to do a story about hunger in America and interview someone that looks hungry. Instead they interview some food shelf keeper that is an axe handle and a half across the butt that has a hard time waddling between two rows of shelves without knocking cans off both sides. The narrative says one thing the pictures tell quite another.

Love the unit of measure there VTS. Would that be a full size felling axe or just a hatchet?

[woodburner]

EEK!! where is the hospital food still able to bite patients?

Just to bang the drum, in the US it is probable that the malnourishment is aided by the food being contaminated with glyphosate, which locks up several nutrients and makes them unavailable to people. This may also be happening to a lesser extent in the UK.

[biffvernon]

I'm told that some nine out of ten of the world's most obese nations are islands in the Pacific, the other one being the USA.

[3rdRock]

It's the DM's job to convince people that there is not a poverty problem in the UK. They seem to be doing so well that they're even beginning to convince the poor that they're not poor.

The Daily Wail is guilty of repeating the mantra so often presented by that objectionable little shit Iain Duncan Smith.

The Guardian on Saturday:

Iain Duncan Smith showed why he never won the VC when he was in the Scots Guards when he refused to face the Labour benches as the Commons debated food banks on 18 December. He pushed forward his deputy, one Esther McVey, a former "TV personality". All she could say was that hunger was Labour's fault for wrecking the economy. She gave no hint that her government had been in power for three years during which the number attending food banks had risen from 41,000 in 2010 to more than 500,000. Her remedy was for the coalition to help more people into work.

See: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... food-banks

[woodburner]

www.iainduncansmith.com for more background.

While I agree with the comments about IDS, there is something worrying about the operation of the food bank.

To feed a couple for five days, it gives: one medium pack of cereal, 80 teabags, a carton of milk, two cans apiece of soup, beans, tomatoes and vegetables, two portions of meat and fish, fruit, rice pudding, sugar, pasta and juice.

This is 8 cups of tea a day each. Now I could get that out of 4 tea bags, but even then is eight a day a tad overdoing it? Vegetables, while more difficult to manage in the store than tins of soup, would provide people with better nutrition, and allow things other than rice pudding and sugar to be included.

[RenewableCandy]

Don't forget that some proportion of food bank users won't be living in proper quarters: they'll be in B&Bs and the like, where the means to store and cook veg (a kitchen not shared by folk willing or able to leave others' stuff alone) are not available.

You know the way they calculate "excess winter deaths" each year? There must be some equivalent statistical way, by now, to begin to calculate "excess ids deaths".

[PS_RalphW]

I'm told that some nine out of ten of the world's most obese nations are islands in the Pacific, the other one being the USA.

Pacific islanders went through a population bottleneck that genetically predisposed them t obesity because they benefitted by being gluttons when the food supply was unreliable, ie. Feast or famine. The usa has cheap carbohydrates and a car culture that actively discourages physical activity.

[RenewableCandy]

Yes there's some research I've read where they found that "obese" (i.e. bmi > 30) Africans and Polynesians carry the extra weight in a far healthier manner than obese white people or people from Asia.