A mum has spoken out about life on the breadline, explaining how she skips meals to make sure she can feed her children. In a stark reflection of the reality facing many families, she even said she worried she would have to feed her nine-month-old daughter cow's milk, despite its risks to babies, because of soaring prices.
Melissa has taken part in a new short film for charity The Food Foundation to highlight the struggles families are facing during the cost of living crisis. Speaking about her situation, she said it was "impossible" to afford healthy food for her kids.
She said: "The cost of living crisis has affected me and my children really badly. I'm not able to buy the correct food for them - I have to get cheap food.
"When I go shopping now, I go straight to the frozen section. I cannot afford to buy fresh. I love cooking and getting the children involved with prepping our meals, but because now it's just grab the bag of nuggets out the freezer, there's nothing they can do to help me. I used to shop in Aldi, week in, week out, but now I'm shopping wherever I can get vouchers from - I'm also using food banks."
Melissa added that she feels "shame" when she is forced to tell her children she cannot afford to buy an item of food they desire, reports BirminghamLive. She said: "They have a meltdown in the shop; I look around and think 'are people looking at me?'"
The mum even fears she may have to start feeding her youngest daughter cow's milk after seeing baby milk prices skyrocket. Children aged under 12 months can become seriously ill from drinking cow's milk, which does not contain enough iron to meet a baby's needs.
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Melissa, from Solihull, said: "I used to breastfeed her because it was free and the price of baby milk is extortionate. I did that but then my breast milk dried up so I had to put her on formula milk.
"She's now nine months old and the (formula) milk in the last two weeks has gone up from £8.59 to £9.39. I just feel, if it goes up any more, I will be forced to put her on cow's milk.
"There are so many children living in poverty and adults going without meals but the shame associated with struggling means very few people speak out. I want MPs to try and understand just how much the cost of living crisis affects everyone, every day - especially people on low incomes."
The Food Foundation’s seven-minute film, ‘They Know We Are Here’, features doctor Ewan Hamnett, who has been working in Birmingham for nearly 30 years.
He said: "The cost of this will fall on government. It’s a false economy. To not invest in people’s lives is crazy because you’ll have the health and social care costs later in life."
Anna Taylor, executive director at the charity, said: "Food price inflation of almost 20% is a daily crisis for low-income families. Food insecurity rates have doubled in the past year and one in four households with children are affected.
"The Government must do more. It must ask supermarkets to explore what they can do to make nutritious food affordable to low-income families.
"It must promote payment of the Real Living Wage by big employers. It should be heavily promoting the Healthy Start scheme as currently one in three people eligible are not registered. It should expand free school meals to all children living below the poverty line and it should rapidly review the adequacy of benefit payments so they are sufficient to guarantee basic living costs."
For more information about The Food Foundation, click here.
