Eating Healthy Costs More and It’s Time To Stop Pretending It Doesn’t.

In the past 12 months, I have lost almost 5 stone in weight. It’s been *hard* work, and not because I don’t want to diet, but because it’s difficult to afford the foods I should be eating if I want to maintain a healthy body and lifestyle.

As anyone who has attended a Slimming World or WeightWatchers meeting will tell you, losing weight is easy: it just takes cooking all the meals you eat from scratch; a kitchen; the right equipment; your energy costs covered by a magic money fairy; the money in your pocket to be able to buy a fabulous array of vegetables and fruits, be they fresh or frozen…

It just takes being able to buy a whole chicken and a lettuce!

Losing weight and living a healthy lifestyle isn’t a mystery to most people. Not the very well off, not the middle classes, and not the working classes. Most of us know what we should be eating, and we know what our children should be eating. I don’t know any parents who have sat down and decided they want their child to be fat, unhealthy, and unable to play and run with free movement, whatever perceived class they are from.

I know fat rich people and skinny poor people, but mostly it’s the other way round. Not because of a deliberate choice to eat crap and laze around on a fat arse all day, though. It’s not a ‘lack of willpower‘ that makes those in poverty put on the pounds, something Jamie Oliver tried–if clumsily–to get across this week.

Unfortunately, the entire concept of food and food poverty seems to be based around the idea of a Class System. The wealthy, if we are to believe The Times, are taking heed of the Government’s advice on healthy eating–an approach that will not, apparently, work on the poor. The article actually calls those in poverty an underclass, although it hasn’t directly attributed those exact words to Jamie (read it here). I can’t begin to express just how offensive that is, and how much it hurts to be deemed as less than, as below. It invalidates my humanity, and that’s painful to deal with.

It’s not class that’s the problem, it’s money.

Poor children are twice as likely as rich children to be obese. Two thirds of children living in poverty come from families where one, or both, parents work. I have emails from nurses, from teachers, and even from a solicitor, all sharing their stories of struggling to get food on the table. One nurse actually has a slice of bread before work, and nothing else until she ends her shift, when she has a bowl of porridge. She’s not an underclass, and I’m pretty certain these educated men and women don’t have trouble grasping “middle class logic”. It’s not a class problem, but a financial one. Something I was able to discuss in detail at the Food Foundation‘s Vegetable Summit last year, and also wrote about earlier this year for the Health Foundation.

Back to my own weight loss. Two years ago, eating what I eat now was an impossibility. It’s not that I suddenly have a diet of roast duck and caviar, but I am able to afford to buy a chicken in place of nuggets, and pork shoulder instead of sausages. We still eat our staples and favourites, like sweet potato and butternut squash tagine, curries, and anything with rice, but we’re able to eat better than before, and you know what?

…it costs more…

It costs more to buy. More to cook. More physical energy to prepare. A degree of risk, because trying new food around kids is always a risk, right? I don’t know about your kids, but if I served mine chickpeas on a regular basis, I would be slaughtered–and they wouldn’t have even tried them when they were young. I know this as fact, because I like the bloody things and love cooking with them. A tub of hummus lasts exactly 30 seconds if it’s put close to me. My children thought chickpeas were weird, bland, and disgusting, the same as most other kids. Poverty happens in the pocket, not in the taste buds. Sure, as they’ve grown older, I’ve got them to eat more foods and now we argue over hummus and the valuable cucumber sticks we get to scoop it up with.

We have a richer, more varied, diet thanks, in part, to our struggles with poverty and the breadline. We’ve had to adapt and learn that what was in front of us is all I had to give, and if my kids didn’t eat it, they would go hungry.

Please, understand, when I say ‘they would go hungry’ I don’t mean the old threat, “You eat that, or you go to bed hungry,” – I mean there was nothing else to eat, and we had no access to food unless they ate what was in front of them; the same reality as millions of other children know every single day. Some days the best I could offer was smashed up kidney beans (bean burgers) and some potato wedges made from those last couple of sad looking spuds in the cupboard. If you haven’t been there, you’re lucky. If you have, I’ve cried your tears.

The risk of trying new foods is a very real one, in households where a meal for four people has to cost around £1.50 – £2.00 in its entirety. Wasting money, wasting food, is never an option. So what happens? Normally something like this:

Me: What should I cook for dinner? This is a nice recipe, and I should be able to afford the ingredients…squash is cheap as anything in Lidl, so that’s not an issue. I have rice, and I’m sure I can stretch to a tin of tomatoes…

Me: Although we’ve had tomato based dishes all week. I think I might cry if I have to face another tomato sauce. Even ketchup would be too much, right now.

Me: We could have fajitas, but without the meat…

Me: Oh yeah. I have a daughter who doesn’t like veggie fajitas. I can’t feed her separately today, so…

Me: I could always do rice. Again. I am so bored of rice. And potatoes. My life is rice and potatoes. Where do these people on TV buy their takeaways? A kebab costs seven bloody quid…times that by six…hahaha NOPE. That’s not going to happen. Okay, so no takeaways for us. Twenty quid for a pizza? I’d rather shove wasps up my…

Me: Was that the electric meter beeping? Damn, it was. Okay…no long cooking times, then. Quick, cheap, and easy. God, I’m tired. Okay...I have a fiver–that’s enough for some Iceland pizzas or sausages, a bag of oven chips, and some beans. 20 minutes and we’re done and I can finally sit down for half an hour and still have the lights on in the morning! Yay! Whoop–living the high life!

And so it goes. I can feed a family of four an evening meal for a fortnight at Iceland for £21.55 (as at time of writing). £20 for 14 meals for four people. That’s without additions, like vegetables or fruits; they cost more, and at my most desperate all I could think of is to stop the constant whines of, “Mum, I’m hungryyyy. So I’ve based this on those feelings of helplessness.”

It’s no secret why those in poverty are struggling with obesity. 75 breaded chicken nuggets for £3.00? Middle class logic? How about 4 Scotch Pies for £1.25? Lack of education? 40 value sausages for £2.00 might have more to do with it. People eat this stuff because it’s cheap. Most of the people I’ve spoken to don’t even like the bloody stuff, but it’s the most calories for the least amount of cash–it’s economically sound, if not nutritionally so.

Short cooking times, ease of storage, the knowledge the food will be eaten? It all combines, becoming the only safe route forward. Healthy food simply costs more. A cheap chicken, while only £3.00, takes an hour in the oven. Pulses and beans need soaking and boiling for an hour. Even potatoes are energy-expensive, depending on how they’re being cooked. And this is before we’ve even thought about how the kids are going to react to a courgette and pasta bake!

I have no trouble grasping the Middle Class Concepts of healthy eating. I’ve taught my children to cook, and we’re so lucky in that we have a well functioning kitchen and the things we need to cook our meals. I can cook, and I’m not half bad at it, either. But there are still times, even two years on from my original blog post, that dinner is something from a bag from an Iceland freezer. There are still times when there’s not so much as a solitary pea on my plate, and there are still times when I’ve resorted to eating just a bowl of plain steamed rice, rather than risk putting on weight and eating processed frozen foods.

Each extra item added to a plate costs money. It’s a very simple fact to grasp, regardless of class, that more food on a plate will mean higher costs. So food is removed from the plate, and the food removed cannot be anything that will fill a stomach…so the added vegetables are lost, and a beige plate of oven-baked nuggets and chips reigns supreme for another night. Bellies are filled, and kids will sleep without waking up because they’re hungry.

Food Poverty is not a class problem. It’s a financial one.

If You Need A Gun To Make People Do It Your Way…You’re Doing It Wrong.

In a bit of tremendous foreshadowing, I have a line in my third book:

“It’s naïve to think any peace gained by such means would be a lasting one. It is like holding someone under the point of your sword, and declaring him willingly obedient, when he is simply too afraid to move.”

The same, I think, works with religion. If you point a semi-automatic weapon at me, and tell me to obey, then I will. I am no hero, for all I would like to be. I have no religion; I am not ashamed, or fundamental, about my Atheism. I think believing in a monotheistic sky-god is weird, but it’s not my choice what you want to believe.

You want to think the son of a god came down from Heaven? Great! You do you, and I will do me (that sounds bad, but we’ll run with it). You want to think there are aliens, or prophets, or a being watching you from the sky? Cool. You think that.

But your beliefs are not mine. They should have exactly zero impact on my life. They should not rule my uterus. I have four surviving children, all grown nicely, thank you, and I did that without religion telling me how to go about it. I have had early miscarriages, and lost a child, late into pregnancy, and I did that just fine without a Bible in my hand. If I found out I was pregnant tomorrow, I would be at the clinic on Monday to deal with it. My husband has had a vasectomy, and I do not want another child.

It is my right to have autonomy over my own body.

Your beliefs have exactly nothing to do with how I live my life.

But, and here’s the thing…I want to live, and let live. I want to enjoy the fact I am a Godless Heathen. I love believing that when I die, I will be dead. There will be no other life. There will be nothing beyond this existence. I will have lived and, much like a hamster, I will have died and be remembered by a few people. In a hundred years, there will be no one speaking my name, and I will be gone. That’s comforting to me. It’s what I believe. I am a card carrying paid up member of the British Humanist Association. My body is going to science. Do not pray over my corpse. Do not throw holy water at me. That is YOUR belief. It’s not mine.

Yet I will go to your funeral. I will bow my head, through your prayers. I will be respectful in your churches, and respect your mosques. I will enter your temple softly, and leave it as I find it. Your beliefs deserve my respect.

And my beliefs bloody well deserve your respect.

You will not find agreement, or belief, by firing guns into a crowd. You will not find converts at sword point. You cannot police the mind, you cannot tell us what to believe. You cannot kill swathes of people, and make us all join you in your demented war against rationality. You cannot make me become like you. You cannot make me think what you want me to think.

Honestly, I think you’re not helping your own cause, really. You want to rule. What you desire has nothing to do with religion. It has nothing to do with belief. It has nothing to do with a ‘Holy War’ or anything ‘Holy’.

Holy is something found when human loves human. When we embrace our world and care for it, and each other.

And peace will never be found at the end of a sword. Submission is not permission. You will not win this war. We don’t believe in you.

We don’t believe in you.

You will not win.

Stand & Deliver: Modern Highway Robbery! Your Money or No Home!

Last week, I looked at a ‘Beautifully presented, newly refurbished, modernised home’. It lived up to the blurb in a way not many things ever do. It was indeed beautiful. It was well presented, and newly refurbished. Its brand new kitchen and bathroom, oak laminate, and white-painted smooth unmarked walls set pictures of Home Beautiful and Good Housekeeping magazine floating peacefully through my head, as cellos played and gauzy white nets fluttered in a gentle breeze. I could see modern sleek furniture in the ‘spacious’ living room. The front room, with its closed off fireplace, was already my new study. In my private little dream, I saw the beds placed just so, in each of the three double (mould-free) bedrooms. It was, in short, a dream home. And the rent, at £875 a month, was average and just within budget.

The agency fees, however, were not. As anyone in the private rental sector knows, as a tenant, you are expected to hand over a deposit (normally one month’s rent, plus another hundred. In this case, the deposit would be £975). You are also expected to pay a month’s rent in advance, which is all fine and dandy. All letting agents have ‘admin fees’. Normally, these will range between £125 – £175 per tenant. So, for myself and my husband, this would generally work out around £300, and include an inventory, tenancy agreement, and a handover of keys.

I used to work in a letting agency. The tenancy agreement is a word.doc; a bog standard bit of wording with a ‘fill in the blanks’ for address and names. Takes 5 minutes. I could run one up on this computer, right now, and it would be as legally binding as any given to me by an agent, so long as it was signed. But, of course, the agents need their income, so they charge. Kudos to them, but it’s extortion, right?

However, the agent I met with last week, to view the whitewashed paradise of this terraced house? They wanted a little bit more than the costs stated above. Take a deep breath, and hug your wallets close. Ready?

Rent £875.00
Security £975.00
T/agreement £300.00
References £225.00
Admin £150.00
Check-in £120.00
Guarantor chk £100.00
Pet Clause £75.00

A grand total of £2,820.00, to save you adding it up. £970.00 in fees alone. But it gets better. They required a ‘Good Faith’ payment of £500.00 to hold the property while they did credit checks. Checks I informed them I would not pass. My credit is shot to all buggery, and I have more chance of accidentally discovering a way to teleport humanity through black holes, defeat the Borg, and live without religion, than I have of passing anything like a credit check. This is why I have a guarantor.

The £500.00 is non-refundable, if the credit check is failed. So they get five-hundred quid, and I get to still be imminently homeless. That’s nice, isn’t it? (They said, when I kicked up a bit of a stink over this, that they would of course refund me, because I had been so open and honest with them. I asked for that in writing…the fact I do not have that house to move into gives you their answer.)

Now, you would at this point be forgiven for thinking this was one of those backstreet agents, like the abortionists and money-lenders of old. You know they’re there, but good people don’t have no truck with them. But it wasn’t. It’s a massive High Street chain, with offices all over the South of England. The smaller backstreet guys are generally more honest, in the case of lettings. They have more to lose, if people complain. Their reputation is all they really have, so they make themselves good enough that people want to do business with them.

Shelter, the homeless charity, have also noted the unfairness of these fees. They have a petition to sign, if you want to click this link and head on over to their page.

Disheartened, unable to pay nearly £1000.00 in agents fees, I walked out of the beautiful house that may have been a home, and went back to pounding the streets. My home is out there, I have no doubt, but I can’t justify paying all the money I have in the world, donated by people who are kind enough to help me, to a Highwayman of the Modern Era. The difference between these agents and Dick Turpin is, simply, they are breaking no law. Everything else, though? There’s not much between them. You have to ‘Stand and Deliver’, or you will be on the streets. There is no choice, but to pay, if you want a roof over your head and a life worth living.

So, it’s back to scouring the web, the papers, and the streets for me, and I’ll continue to believe there is something better around the corner.

Kathleen Kerridge is a Fantasy Fiction Writer. Her books can be found on Amazon here. Or here, if you are not in the UK.

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There is now a Go Fund Me page, a friend set up, to help me cover the cost of moving. I am, as always, overwhelmed by the generosity of people.

Cosmic Pigeons, Metaphorical Poop, & the 80s!

I have got to know my city.

This is one of the positives to have come my way since my eviction notice fell through my door last Thursday morning. I have walked the length, and I have walked the breadth. I walked diagonal, in circles, up and down…I could have started a one woman tourist agency. No, really, I could have. Portsmouth is a beautiful city, when you look at it with fresh eyes and an optimist’s filter. I’m a human Instagram, when it comes to making things look better than they are. Rats? Great wildlife locally! Overgrown bushes? I do love a good Nature Reserve! Crushed and discarded beer cans strewn haphazardly across the grassy patch on the corner of a road? Modern Art, dude! You get the idea.

So, in a week that has had me walk more than 60 miles, look at 5 houses, apply to view another 70 (yes, really), and speak to the Council (I saw the really cool guy who was on ‘How To Get A Council House. He’s lovely in real life), I thought I would kick back and look at those positives. Remind myself who I am, remember what I have been through, and understand that, as with all things, “This Too Shall Pass.”.

I can have a massive clear out. I am naturally a bit of a hoarder. I like *things*, and I tend to pick them up from everywhere I go. Even if it’s only to the local Tesco, I end up with some small bit of crap that caught my eye. I have enough books to fill a study, maybe enough to fill a small library. I have clothes (too small, too big, kids outgrew them…) enough to start a charity shop. Maybe a rag shop, actually, because they’re not really that great and some are from the 90s. I wish that on no-one. I found my recycling mojo kicked in when I looked in, and around, my family’s wardrobes. DVDs, CDs, and, believe it if you will, cassette tapes. I have accumulated so much tat and crap over the years, the BBC could do a one hour special on ‘Things We Should Throw In The Bin’. It’s worthless, old, and mostly junk. Positive #1 of being made homeless? I can justifiably throw away the remnants of a life long lost.
I will be forced to save every penny, and replace my mould-infested furniture. This sounds harsh, but new furniture has never really happened in my life. Not much as a child, and definitely not as an adult. I had friends with old sofas, and beds no longer used. They had tables and TV units. They had an old wardrobe, which was going to the tip. They had coffee tables and freezers. You get the idea. It’s a constant source of amazement to me, how generous my friends and family are (and in one case, how much of a shopaholic pack-rat one friend is: a lot of the ‘second hand’ things she offered to me at huge discounts were a month or two old, and she’d simply gone off them). It has meant, of course, that I have not had to buy new pieces, or spend extreme amounts of money. It has also meant I have never chosen what will go in a room, what we will sleep on, or how our dining table would look. We always ‘made do’ as many others always do. Now, thanks to all my possessions being ruined, I need replacements. I have decided I will save, constantly, when we have a secure roof over our heads, and I will buy cheap, cheerful items, chosen by me. They might well come from thrift and charity shops, indeed, they likely will, as I love the 60s & 70s home decor look (don’t judge me!), but I would have chosen them. Positive #2 of being made homeless? I can start afresh and get things I like. Also, the kids love camping – they get to have sleeping bags and roll mats, until their beds can be replaced. Yay!
I get to document everything, as it happens. The people I meet, the resources available, the robbing rental agencies! There is so much involved, when one is becoming homeless, it seems scary, daunting, and at times insurmountable. Hoops are put up to jump through, then moved, just after you have launched yourself up into the air. The rules of the game change, but that’s not so bad, because it turns out I was playing Cluedo, and everyone else was playing Chess. Typical. I’m hoping to gather enough information to be of some good to someone, somewhere. I’m not the only one out there, in this situation. I won’t be the last. So I will collate and make note of anything useful. Positive #3 of being made homeless? I can make it into a small adventure and hopefully help people as I go along my way.
I survived the Eighties. So this, in comparison, should be a piece of cake. I was brought up on a Council Estate, by a single mum, in the bloody Eighties. I had day-glo socks and a big perm. I wore white stilletto shoes and ra-ra skirts, with shoulder-pads to rival Joan Collins. I had Converse and Hi-Tec trainers. I am battle hardened to austerity, I have lived through boom times and fallen through the recessional floor. I can do this. I must do this. I will do this. Positive #4 of being made homeless? I have realised how strong I am, and that I can get through it. Because…
I have the best friends, anywhere, everywhere, in the world. Truly, you are all amazing. Thanks to your support and messages, I have not crumbled on the worst days, and I have laughed on the not-so-bad days. I’m exhausted, worn out, and disheartened. I will not patronise myself, or anyone else in the same predicament, by pretending otherwise. But thanks to all of you, I know I am not alone. Just knowing I have support, good wishes, love, and people who care? It sort of balances the cosmic pigeon enjoying itself by shitting on my head from a great height. I might be getting shat on, but you all hand me the baby wipes to clean myself up and carry on. Thanks go to all of you, but a special mention will be made here to a lovely woman, Zoe Gray. She heard what had happened and set to making a difference. There is now a Go Fund Me page, if you would like to help financially. Many of you have asked, and now, thanks to Zoe, there’s one set up.

So, it’s hard, being made homeless. Bloody hard. But there are positives, if you know where to look. I’m off now, to drink some coffee and tend to the immense and epic blisters I have. Then I’ll throw clothes away and old ornaments, and maybe even that old shirt I have had since I was 11. I’ll sing along to Material Girl, and throw out mouldy linens. And I’ll hope for some kind of cosmic Pest Control guy to come and kill the cosmic pigeon. I’ll remember this is but another phase, and I will be moving on. I’ll remember I have friends and people who want to help me — and in turn, I’ll remember to accept that help.

Kathleen Kerridge is a Fantasy Fiction Writer. Her books can be found on Amazon here. Or here, if you are not in the UK.

Disconnect The Poor In The Internet Age

The Internet Is Not A Luxury. It needs to be said before we go any further.

If you have children, they need it for homework and studies. They need it to send in assignments and to keep up to date with coursework. “Libraries!” I hear some of you shouting, “Go to an Internet Cafe!” All well and good, but for a lot of people, their nearest library is in the centre of their town or city and would mean a two mile walk each way. Sometimes more. The walk would have to be done daily after school–because buses are not cheap and feet are free. This is, of course, after leaving the house at 7:30am, walking the half an hour to school in all weathers and putting in a full day of studying. Internet Cafes’ charge for the privilege of using the computers. It is not a viable option for most.

To not have the internet at home, a child from a poor family would have to stay out of the family home for approximately (in our case and based on the distances my daughter walks to school) another three hours. She would not get home until around 7pm at night…and would have to walk in the dark, through a not-exactly-great area of the city (neither myself or my husband drive; we cannot afford a car…and cannot afford the lessons anyway). Meg is a straight A student. She dreams of university life and becoming a doctor. It is all she has wanted to do since she was four years old. At just turned sixteen, she keeps a relentless study schedule. She works from 8.00am through to 9.00pm as it is. At home, she is safe, [mostly]warm and can eat her dinner as she studies.

The Internet Is Essential. We are told the way to lift ourselves high and achieve riches untold, is to be well-educated and get a professional career. Are only the children of the comfortable and the rich allowed to follow this dream? Are the children of the poor to be raised with the depressing knowledge in their young heads that their lot in life is to serve the children of the rich? To clean, and sweep and toil and slave, with no hope of realising their aspirations and dreams…because school work now requires an internet connection, to get the best education available. Each time a struggling family is told their internet is a luxury, they are told their children do not deserve the access to it in the home. They are told their children should be thankful for their lot, and stay in the ‘place’ they were born.

There are disabled people, housebound and alone for weeks on end. They do not have the option of walking the two miles (or more) to their library, to be able to sit down and make some contact with relatives living apart from them. To see pictures of their newest little cousins, or a new grandchild. They cannot spare the money from their living allowances or benefits to use an internet cafe. To say to them that the Internet is a luxury they can do without, to save money, is to isolate them and cage them in their loneliness. The quality of life of the elderly and infirm increases dramatically, if they are taught to use a computer, laptop or even a smart-phone, and can access and utilise the web. Depression caused by isolated living is lifted, just a little. Shopping can be done, friends spoken with, people contacted, programmes watched. The Internet is essential. That they need to choose between eating, heating, or human contact is appalling, and they should not be expected to make that choice.

Job seekers are told, by the Job Centre, to apply for an initial interview online. School Admittance Forms? Fill them out online. Best grocery offers? Online. Job searching? Property rental? Council Housing Register? You’ve guessed it–it’s all online.

Is it reasonable, therefore, to look at the poorest sections of our society and tell them to save money–sometimes as little as £6.99 a month–by getting rid of their internet. Are we, as a society, so judgemental that we believe those in the poorest households must sit in the dark, without a television, without a computer, without communication? Is that what we have become, now, thanks to the portrayal of poverty in the media? To take away the web, is to disconnect more than Google. It is to disconnect ourselves.

If you are affected by any of these issues and would like to chat, or ask for help, please do contact my Facebook page HERE. I answer all messages that come through to me and will always try to point you in the right direction if you need help/advice.

The Graduate Trap

An Interesting Perspective of The University Path.

My Fluid Self: My search for a narrative

I graduated but I didn’t attend graduation. I had made the choice long before then that I wasn’t to be cajoled by sentiment into paying out yet more money I didn’t have to attend pomp. Instead, I rewarded myself for battling up through the tumult of Portsmouth’s hostel system – a web of housing associations and halfway-houses harder to ride out to a successful conclusion than an evening alone with Amnesia: The Dark Descent – and visited Granada, Spain. It may have been, in hindsight, a luxury too late and money misplaced to indulge my fancies so close to the end of my undergraduate lifeline.

As the day of my graduation loomed, the contents of my bank withered and the possibility of a late moment of caprice was revoked. Graduation, at least from an undergraduate degree, would be an experience to pass me by. Thankfully, I was granted a small…

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kathleen kerridge

Tag: education