Whilst perusing the bbc website I found an article about poverty in Britain 100 years ago including the food diary of a poor family who were part of a unique investigation into the lives of the poor by Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree, who ran the family chocolate company.
The food diary is quite staggering - the head of the family ate a diet of almost only bread and tea with one meal of a meagre portion of meat and vegetables in the whole week.
Here's one day from the food diary:
Monday:
* Breakfast - Tea, bread and margarine
* Dinner - Tea, bread and margarine
* Supper - Tea, bread
It's a heart breaking idea that people lived for weeks and even years only such impoverished diets and makes the huge food waste in today's society seem totally obscene.
Fortunately with the subsequent introduction of benefits very few in this country will eat even close to as poorly as this family, but it's good to remember how fortunate we are to be able to eat well given that some of our grandparents and great grandparents would have struggled to afford proper meals. It still is shocking that there are many millions of people outside the UK who are unable to provide enough food to properly feed themselves and their families.
So next time you're about to tuck into a tasty meal maybe pause for a second and remember how lucky you are to have that food to eat.
For those interested here's the article, and I promise a more upbeat blog tomorrow!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11584487
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