In the last seven days, I started to focus on simply eating right. My hope is to slowly stop being obese.
The trick with eating right is being able to afford to do so. Obesity is now highly linked with poverty. More and more, it is the rich and only the rich that can afford a balanced diet.
I have noticed that in the last few months milk has increased price by about 50%. Bread by about 20%. Give or take a bit. That is way above the “usual” rate of inflation. It is also something that income cannot keep pace with.
Financially the UK is entering a crisis where famine might be as feared along with the spectre of the plague known as COVID. We only need war to complete the full set and start the apocalypse.
Even when money exists to buy food, that does not mean that what you want is even going to be available. That’s the topic of the conversation on Twitter right now.
All blame; no solutions
Right now, the attitude in the press and online appears to be the blame game.
Blame the Tories as they are in power. To be fair, they started this ball rolling. The Tories were at the helm to guide us into this mess. That’s just what you get when a party bows to popularism and fear instead of doing what is right.
Blame Labour because they did not object loudly enough. Because they did not answer questions. Because they don’t have a plan either. That’s what you get when the opposition is divided and at war with itself.
Blame newspapers with so little truth “news” seems like a stretch. They too had a hand in this. That’s what you get when you stir up hate to sell papers.
Blame the leave campaign because they promised us things that were never going to happen. No money for the NHS. No better trade deals. No oven-ready Brexit. Nothing. That is just what you get when there are no laws against telling lies or making unkeepable promises during a referendum.
There are solutions to this shortage. The easiest being to rejoin the EU. The problem is, the country is just not desperate enough to consider any workable solutions. This is why we are still in the blaming stage of the crisis.
Not that this helps us eat healthily
I have noticed since Brexit that, little by little, my food budget delivered less food. Somehow, despite junk food being cheap and good food being unavailable or over-priced, I should eat a more balanced diet.
Where I live, there are more food banks than job centres. In some places, there are more food banks than actual banks.
This food shortage is likely to put a strain on an already stretched lifeline for the poor that this Tory government has failed. Make no mistake about it – blame or no blame, the Conservatives have put many of us in harms way in the name of power and a bigger income for the 1%.
For now, at least British vegetables are relatively easy to find in shops. But this is mostly the early harvest of the winter veg. What happens when the growing and harvesting season is over?
The question may soon go from being “how shall I eat well?” to “what is there to eat?”.
The “I told you so” over Brexit is hollow
While we remainers (yes, I was and still am very pro-remain) get to say “I told you so” it seems like a hollow victory when we face the same lack of food, fuel, and funds as those who voted us into this mess.
I have no answers either
I do not have a grand vision to offer you. There is no rallying call towards a solution. I have no answers. All I can do is point to this mess and say “well, crap. This is not a good sign.”
Well, crap. This is not a good sign.
It looks very much like it is time to dig out our notes from the 1980s and 2008 (the credit crunch) and just see what we can figure out. Maybe the world is not going to end just like it did not end the last times our country got itself into a mess. Maybe there is a way to do the three things I set out to do – eat well, be healthy, and reduce stress. Even if at least one of those looks like a pipe dream right now.
