Live Below The Line: Day 4 breakfast, 14p
This breakfast is so simple it hardly needs a recipe, but in ‘normal life’ it’s one of my favourite quick breakfasts anyway, so as soon as I had the peaches in my basket and realised the breakfast potential, I started looking forward to this. Imagine if the grapefruit had been in stock, I would have denied myself the small pleasure of tucking into this this morning – funny how things work out.
I used 80g from my rapidly-diminishing 500g natural yoghurt, which came in at 9p (the yoghurt was 55p for 500g in the Monday shop) and 50g of peaches, which worked out at 5p (they were 40p for 411g). So all in, a 14p breakfast that wasn’t as big as I’d have liked it to be, but I’m rationing remaining ingredients now – if I’m careful I can have this again as a snack or dessert today or tomorrow!
So far, with the generosity of friends and readers, I’ve raised £3,768 for Street Child United by doing this challenge – nearly double my target, and quite overwhelmed at all of the support and kindness. If you haven’t donated or want to check the page out, head over to http://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/agirlcalledjack
Jack Monroe. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram @MsJackMonroe
The more I think about the situation, the more pisses me the amount of wasted and trown away food worth 12 billion £ every year off. (Long sentence, but watching “Rip Off Britain” this morning really annoyed me. When did people become so stupid and wasteful?)
I agree totally with Jens – just WHY does ANYBODY EVER throw food away – haven’t they ever heard of freezers? If you can’t/don’t want to use it right away, PUT IT IN THE FREEZER!!!! This also applies to those bogofs that you thought were good value at the time. A little ingenuity will always find a use for leftovers. If all else fails, make blender soup. Anybody throwing food away should donate its value or more to a charity – if you can afford to waste food, you can afford to make the donation as well.
The worst offenders are the supermarkets themselves; the amount of food shoved into dumpsters is enough to reduce anyone to tears.
As for freezers, yes, if you can afford to run a freezer then you should make good use of it – a full freezer operates more efficiently than one that has empty shelves. However, not every home has a freezer – I know a number of people in rental properties who have fridges but no freezer and no room to install one and I also know people who couldn’t afford to buy and run one, even if they had the room.
Good luck Jack, do what you believe in & you will find happiness. It may take time & growing a thicker skin. But, it will come.
As the son of a small scale, tenant farmer, food is not expensive. In fact, it is far too cheap, that is why there is so much waste. It is not valued.
Completely agree that food should not be wasted. Being creative with leftovers is something I seem to have become an expert at owing to dwindling income, but with hungry teenagers to feed.
However, think the point of what Jack is doing represents people who probably don’t own freezers or the means to buy or run one.