• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to after header navigation
  • Skip to site footer
  • Instagram
  • Amazon
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary

Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary

fuel that adventure

  • Home
  • The Food
    • All Manner of Sweet Things
      • Cake
      • Chocolate
      • Cookies
      • Ice Cream
      • Squares
      • Everything Else
    • Veggie
      • Salad
      • Vegetarian
      • Vegan
    • Carbohydrates
      • Bread
      • Pasta
      • Potato
      • Gluten Free
      • Rice
      • Pastry
    • Soup
    • Hoof & Feather
      • Beef
      • Chicken
      • Lamb
      • Pork
    • Fin & Shell
    • Breakfast
  • The Adventures
    • Shetland
      • Hike Shetland
    • Belgium
    • England
    • France
    • Italy
    • Latvia
    • Norway
    • Scotland
    • Spain
    • The Caribbean
    • USA
  • About Me
  • As Seen
  • PR & Disclosure
  • Contact Me
Breadline Challenge

FoodCycle #BreadlineChallenge – The Menu Plan

Published on November 23, 2014 • Last updated July 22, 2017 by Elizabeth Atia

FoodCycle

This coming week from the 24th-30th of November 2014 I am taking the FoodCycle Breadline Challenge. This challenge, designed to raise awareness of food poverty in the UK and help raise vital funds for the Food Cycle food hubs, asks us to live off of only £2-10 per day (per person) for food and drink. Although we are a family of five, I am taking this challenge on my own, with an entire shopping budget of only £14-70. I will be blogging recipes, tips and thoughts throughout the week. You can sponsor me over on my Virgin Money Giving Page.

Can I do this and eat a healthy, nutritious diet through the week?

In order to attempt to menu plan with the £2-10 per day (£14-70 for the week) budget allowed while on the #BreadlineChallenge I needed to know exactly what is considered a healthy, nutritionally balanced meal. Please note, I am not a nutritionist so I may get this week completely wrong, but I will try my best.

Twenty years ago the UK government created a policy tool defining the government’s recommendations on healthy diets: the Eatwell Plate, with a overall diet consisting of the five food groups – 33 % fruit and vegetables (at least five portions a day); 12 %  meat, fish, eggs, beans and other non-dairy protein; 15 % milk and dairy; 33 % bread, rice, pasta, potatoes and other starchy food and 8 % high fat and/or sugar food and drink. A recent article in the Independent highlighted how this guide needs updating because health concerns have changed  as have other food issues such as environmental sustainability, animal welfare and Fair Trade.

In 2010 the World Wildlife Federation launched their own guidelines: the Livewell Plate, for a diet that will benefit both our health and our environment with similar ratios but more emphasis on healthy and sustainable (low carbon emissions) food choices. I will be using these guidelines to create my healthy diet for this week.

The 2020 Livewell Plate by the WWF
Image from the WWF 2020 Livewell Report

What constitutes a portion?

Plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables in a diet are ideal, but they’re expensive and perishable. In my local Tesco (This week I can’t afford the prices at my local village shop or even those from my organic vegetable box delivery) fresh fruit and vegetables are expensive, and perish quickly. It’s difficult to find anything fresh that will last longer than two or three days, maximum. This might be due to transport time to get food from its source to our remote island in the North Sea, so I’m going to rely on the more affordable and longer lasting frozen variety.

  • Beans & pulses count as one portion of fruit & vegetables a day no matter how much you eat. This is because although they are full of fibre they lack as many nutrients as other fruits and vegetables. 3 tbsp = 1 portion
  •  1 cup (67 grams) chopped kale
  • 3 heaped tbsp cooked, or 80 grams raw carrots
  • 80 grams frozen or fresh fruit & vegetables
  • Dried fruit (raisins, apricots, etc.) 30 grams
  • 75 grams dried rice
  • 75 grams dried pasta
  • 200 ml milk
  • 140 grams oily fish
  • 1 slice of bread
  • 30 grams dried lentils (84 grams cooked)

Breadline ChallengeMy food shop was done at our local Tesco and I used approximately £5 fuel to get there. A bus ticket costs the same into town, or at least it was the last time I traveled on it before I got my driving license three years ago. If I didn’t have access to transport I would have no qualms about hitch hiking to town. I live on a friendly island – someone would pick me up.

For price comparison I priced up the same quantity of food for the lowest price available at our local village shop within walking distance – the total came to £30.41, over twice as much.

Real Life Reform, the people behind the research for the £2.10 daily spend per person for food and drink in this challenge, mention in their report on the effects of the welfare reform in northern England, that the lowered amount of money available for people to spend on food means that more people are shopping at supermarkets and not their local independent shops, simply because they can’t afford it.  Some areas, like where I live, are called food deserts – where fresh produce is unavailable or not affordable.

breadline challenge food shop

You’ll notice a few things with this shop: no meat, no butter, no eggs, no sugar and…. the bit I am dreading the most: no coffee! I could have sacrificed the flavour of my main meals and bought a 50p jar of Tesco brand coffee, but I really wanted that garlic and ginger. I couldn’t afford any non-processed meat, so I opted for a pack of Shetland smoked peppered mackerel fillets equal to 1.2 portions.

The meat and protein component of my diet will be made mostly of beans, legumes and oily fish but I think I will be mostly keeping to the overall livewell plate recommendations.

Breadline Challenge The Menu Plan

This meal plan is subject to change throughout the week if I come up with any more interesting meals (or someone suggests some to me). I really don’t like menu planning. I understand a lot of families do it but I don’t like a) the time it takes to create and b) the lack of flexibility. What if, come Day 6 I don’t want leftover minestrone soup for dinner?! That recipe (slightly adapted) will come from the website A Girl Called Jack.

I was initially going to buy the main ingredients for my meals with the £14-70 budget and top up with the spices, yeast, a bit of ginger root (everyone has a bit of ginger root in their freezer, no?) I have at home until I saw this eye opening short film by the Guardian published on the 17th of November, and then I completely rewrote my menu plan, opting to buy everything from scratch.

Britain Isn't Eating | Off The Page #1

Notes:

Virgin Money Giving screenshot Sunday pmI do have electricity because as long as something is being paid towards it the electricity board leave it switched on. We are fortunate not to have an electricity meter, although I did have one when I was a single mother living in town and I remember how difficult it was sometimes to top it up (thank goodness for £5 tokens!). I also have a deep chest freezer – something I picked up for free off a local forum. I even managed to get it picked up and delivered by a stranger for the price of a home made Victoria sponge. I’ll be using it a lot this week to keep things fresh.

No coffee. No money in the budget for it. I think this is the bit I’m going to struggle with the most. I am a caffeine junkie and haven’t started a morning for the last 12 years without my morning coffee (or two, or three).

No butter. Had planned on buying solid vegetable fat, brown sugar and white flour to make a War Cake but there is no solid vegetable fat (ie: Trex) in Tesco and sugar and white flour aren’t particularly healthy anyway. Spent that money on ginger root and garlic instead.

No sugar. Eek! I’m not sure how well the home made brown bread I plan on making will rise without sugar, but we’ll see if it’s edible.

No chocolate!!

It would have been easier to budget and menu plan if our entire family of five had agreed to participate in this challenge. At £2-10 per person, per day, this would have meant a budget of £73.50 for the week, or £294 for a month.

PLEASE SPONSOR ME ON THE #BREADLINECHALLENGE VIA VIRGIN MONEY GIVING

The whole point of me doing this is to raise awareness and money for Food Cycle. Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary with match, pound for pound, up to £200 the amount raised via Virgin Money Giving to donate to the Shetland Food Bank for their Christmas Food Parcels. Around 60 Shetland families will be supported by these food parcels this festive season.

About Food Cycle:

logoFood Cycle is a UK charity that combines volunteers, surplus food and spare kitchen spaces to create tasty, nutritious meals for people at risk of food poverty and social isolation.

£50 will help them serve healthy, nutritious three course meals for 100 people. Follow @FoodCycle on Twitter using the hashtag #BreadlineChallenge to keep up to date.

If you want to be kept up to date on my recipes, occasional craft tutorials, adventure stories and giveaways then please subscribe to my weekly newsletter; it gets sent out every Monday morning if there is new content. Your email address won’t be passed on to anyone, you will never be spammed and you are free to unsubscribe at any time, no questions asked. Make sure you confirm your subscription or you won’t receive the newsletter – if it hasn’t arrived check your junk mail folder.

[wysija_form id=”1″]

Category: UncategorizedTag: #BreadlineChallenge, food poverty, FoodCycle

About Elizabeth Atia

Daydream adventurer. Expat Canadian. Foodie. Calls Shetland home.

Previous Post: « Banana Nut Protein Smoothie Banana Nut Protein Smoothie
Next Post: The FoodCycle Breadline Challenge Day One Breadline Challenge Day 1 »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Holly

    December 1, 2014 at 1:37 am

    Wow, this is so interesting! Good luck xx

    Reply
    • Elizabeth

      December 6, 2014 at 12:02 pm

      Thank you Holly 🙂

      Reply
  2. Hannah Smith

    November 25, 2014 at 11:42 pm

    I’d just like to say thank you for doing this challenge. I saw it on facebook and felt I had to leave you a comment.
    I’ve been hit really hard financially over the last 3 months after my father had a stroke and I took on the role of full-time (unpaid) carer. There is no help available to us as we have been down every route, and we eventually got referred to a foodbank, something I never thought would happen.

    Thank you for raising awareness of food poverty and good luck with your challenge.

    @smeethsaysfashn on twitter.

    Reply
    • Elizabeth

      December 6, 2014 at 11:59 am

      I’m so sorry to hear about your father, but how admirable of you to be his carer in the face of such difficulties. More people should have your dedication. Wishing you both the very best for the festive period and hoping 2015 is much better to you both. xx

      Reply
  3. Sue

    November 25, 2014 at 2:54 pm

    Good luck with this.

    It’s a good time of year to be highlighting the fact that so many people are struggling to put food on the table. I hope you manage to raise lots of money as well as awareness.

    Reply
    • Elizabeth

      December 6, 2014 at 11:58 am

      I think so too. The challenge was such an eye opener, but I reached my fundraising goal so I feel like I’ve contributed something useful with my blog.

      Reply
  4. Emily @amummytoo

    November 24, 2014 at 3:15 pm

    I am SO impressed with this. It really shows how challenging it is, and how much time and thought has to go into making it work.

    Reply
    • Elizabeth

      December 6, 2014 at 11:57 am

      Thanks Emily 🙂

      Reply
  5. Sally - My Custard Pie

    November 24, 2014 at 3:11 pm

    I’d admire you for doing this – and it makes you think that some people have no choice. It takes a lot of planning too.

    Reply
    • Elizabeth

      December 6, 2014 at 11:56 am

      Aw thanks Sally. I was surprised at how much planning it took – when I normally shop I get the same regular basics and then whatever else is on offer/affordable and THEN think about what to cook. I had to do this backwards!

      Reply
  6. Kavey

    November 24, 2014 at 10:08 am

    That’s a tough challenge, so best of luck. It’s a sad thing that so many in our country cannot afford to eat properly – not right at all when we consider ourselves a “first world” country.

    Reply
    • Elizabeth

      December 6, 2014 at 11:55 am

      I agree, it really is. It was a hard challenge but I made it through and reached my fundraising target too!

      Reply
  7. Claire @foodiequine

    November 24, 2014 at 8:36 am

    Good luck with this Elizabeth. I found the video really enlightening. Coincidentally I’m doing a pilot workshop today for SCARF who support people living in fuel poverty. As part of their Heat and Eat campaign looking at the difficult choices being made between heating a home and eating a healthy and nutritionally balanced diet.

    Reply
    • Elizabeth

      December 6, 2014 at 11:55 am

      Thank you Claire, and good on you for volunteering! Are you going to blog about it – it would be interesting to read what suggestions you’ve got.

      Reply
  8. Sue

    November 24, 2014 at 8:13 am

    Good luck with your challenge Elizabeth and thank for showing that video. I think you will do a great job with what you have bought because you know how to cook. It’s not so easy if you don’t have those skills. The thing that strikes me is how much easier this would be if you were to do it for a whole family.

    Reply
    • Elizabeth

      December 6, 2014 at 11:54 am

      Thank you Sue, it would have been a lot easier to do with a family budget for sure!

      Reply
  9. Becca @ Amuse Your Bouche

    November 24, 2014 at 12:24 am

    Good luck with the challenge! I’m sure it’ll be tricky but at least the meal plan looks tasty – love the plan of the bean and carrot burgers!

    Reply
    • Elizabeth

      December 6, 2014 at 11:53 am

      Thank you – you know, I never ended up making those as I didn’t have any cumin and just didn’t fancy them without!

      Reply
  10. jess

    November 23, 2014 at 9:17 pm

    This is a cool idea and something I hadn’t heard of before… hope you manage to complete the challenge love! http://www.jaylasjungle.com

    Reply
    • Elizabeth

      December 6, 2014 at 11:53 am

      Thanks Jess – I did, and I reached my fundraising goal too! Nice to do something useful with my blog for a change!

      Reply
  11. My Life As A Mummy

    November 23, 2014 at 8:52 pm

    Good luck with your challenge. It is sooo scary to think that people actually have no choice but to live like this!

    Laura x xx

    Reply
    • Elizabeth

      December 6, 2014 at 11:44 am

      Isn’t it – I am so grateful that we have enough to get by on. Such an eye opener.

      Reply
  12. The mummy madness

    November 23, 2014 at 9:08 pm

    oh wow I hope it goes well, I do not know how I would cope doing this but it sounds like a fun challenge. I bet it will make you realise how much we take for granted I bet.

    Reply
    • Elizabeth

      December 6, 2014 at 11:52 am

      Thank you – it wasn’t easy but I made it through to the end and reached my fundraising goal too! 🙂

      Reply
  13. Chloe Griffiths

    November 23, 2014 at 8:45 pm

    I’m planning on dieting this week. I’ve been so bad recently. I’ll keep the info in mind x

    Reply
    • My Life As A Mummy

      November 23, 2014 at 8:53 pm

      Dieting????? You serious??? This post is about people who can not afford to eat!

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. The FoodCycle Breadline Challenge is here… | something green says:
    November 15, 2015 at 8:36 pm

    […] would like to leave you with this video that I came across in this blog post by Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary. In light of what we at FoodCycle are talking about this week and […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Sidebar

About Elizabeth

Adventurer. Expat Canadian. Foodie. Loves bikes. Calls Shetland home. Read More…

Inspiration

“Every day is another chance to get stronger, to eat better, to live healthier, and to be the best version of you.”

Recent Posts

Image of a stainless steel camping bowl filled with chorizo chowder. There are a few slices of toasted focaccia on the side with gorgeous black grill lines.
Image of The Face of Neeans with its very steep cliffs.

Copyright © 2011–2022 Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary Ltd · Privacy Policy · All Rights Reserved · Website by Callia Web

Company Number: SC643807 · Registered Business Address: 42 Carden Place, Aberdeen, AB10 1UP