by Frances Laing

Created on: March 03, 2009

The U.K. has extremes of wealth, food and fuel poverty. It's difficult to chart the extent of these trends. So often they don't hit the headlines. People in the front line are caught up with day-to-day realities and don't tend to shout about it.

However we know that the global recession is making it's presence felt here. The retail and finance trade has been badly hit, and thousands of people are losing their jobs every week. This means a forced, radical change of lifestyle for many - many families and children will be much worse off, financially.

There's a feeling that some people have grown so used to having luxury food, access to a car, being able to sell their house easily - that the 'credit crunch' has knocked them for six. I spoke to a welfare rights adviser last week. His telephone counselling lines have been jammed in the past few months. Mainly people who've been made redundant. When they hear how little money they'll receive in welfare payments many of them just can't believe it. Debt is a huge issue too. People have over-stretched themselves in recent years.

There are different food coping strategies in evidence. 'Staying in is the new going out' is a phrase commonly heard now. Eating (and drinking) out is becoming much less frequent. If they have a job, more people are taking sandwiches to work, to save money. In our city the recession has caused many pub, shop and restaurant closures. People appear to be coping with rising food prices by changing where, how and when they shop. Budget supermarket ranges are becoming more popular. Our organic supermarket has closed down. The reason given was the drop in sales. People are tending not to buy so much processed food as the prices of this have risen sharply.

Child obesity has been a problem too, in recent years. Some say it's down to junk food advertising on the television. Some children watch more now, often having a computer in their own room. Some analysts blame over-consumption of cheap high calorie food and drinks. And car dominated culture doesn't help.

On a positive note, there's been a huge upsurge of interest in kitchen gardening - with an emphasis on 'growing your own' to supplement and salvage the household budget. Seed sales have increased this year again. The National Trust (a heritage organisation) has donated land to use for fruit and veg growing.

But this only solves one part of the problem. Many of us have lost touch with growing and gardening skills and aren't yet at the stage where we can be self-sufficient. Beginners get disheartened when they realise kitchen gardening is a skill that must be learned. It is going to take time for subjects such as gardening and basic cookery to gain in popularity again. There's a lot of information out there in terms of television programmes, books and websites but these are practical skills that - quite literally -take time to 'bear fruit'.

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