Rich Guy ‘Proves’ Food Poverty Is Just Laziness With His Cheap Recipe, Gets Called Out For His Complete Ignorance (16 Pics)
In 2018, a UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights made some shocking findings in the UK, one of the richest and most developed economies in the world. Almost 14 million people, or a fifth of the population, live in poverty, leaving four million children without access to healthy and nutritious food.
According to the Food Ethics Council, many families in the UK are ‘food insecure,’ facing stark choices between buying food, paying the rent or heating their home. A combination of a lack of shops selling fresh food, fast food outlets near schools and vegetables that cost three times more than ultra-processed alternatives means that cheap food laden with salt, sugar and saturated fats are often their only option. This is known as food poverty.
Image credits: AndrewBooton
This tweet by the chairman of Cheltenham Civic Society, whose main aim is to maintain the special architectural qualities of Cheltenham and its environment, is a perfect example of victim-blaming by someone completely out of touch with the reality for many people in the UK.
Mr. Booten shared an image of the chicken stir-fry he prepared for his family for £3.89, or 97p each. “Don’t tell me we have food poverty in this country,” he captioned the image. “It’s just idleness.”
See, you’re only malnourished because you’re lazy, you silly poor person!
Image credits: dnstewart67
There are many reasons why the tweet was in poor taste, as well as being factually inaccurate. People were quick to point them out with nearly 5000 responses, most of them negative.
Mr. Booten has since deleted his tweet with an apology, saying that he was sorry for “having trivialized a serious issue.”
Image credits: mudlarklives
Now, there is a lot of denial about these inconvenient facts about poverty in the UK, and a tendency for those who aren’t affected by it to blame the victim for their own shortcomings. Nevermind that many of the jobs in northern, industrial towns have been sold off for short term profit.