The woman who can show you how to feed yourself for £1 a day

Updated
Pat Barker
Pat Barker



A Facebook group set up to help people feed themselves for £1 a day has attracted more than 44,000 members. Created in August last year by Pat Barker, the group has now collected hundreds of recipes, some costing just pennies per serving.

"Scrimping, buying things reduced, bulk buying, bulk cooking, home growing, any way you can do it!" Pat explains on Facebook. "The idea is to generally eat real food, preferably not processed wherever possible but when you get an unbeatable offer you just go for it."

While ready meals can appear cheap, she says, they tend to contain very little goodness, and it's generally much better value to make your own version instead.

The trick is to make sure you know how to make the basics: for example, whipping up pancakes from eggs, flour and milk. One of the most popular recipes on the site is for a baked bean lasagne; another is a pasta dish based on tinned salmon that costs just 32p a serving.

Pat believes that many people today have lost the ability to cook simple meals. "Bring back compulsory cooking lessons for both sexes," she tells the Daily Mirror. "It shouldn't necessarily be a GCSE and not Food Technology, but good old Home Economics, as they taught in the 1960s. Real basic cooking from scratch. This would help so many people."
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Pat's members aren't the only ones to be feeding themselves on £1 a day. Lesley Cooper, who was once homeless, has created a website that also lists cheap recipes, with most dinners working out at around 50p a head.

Her 340 recipes include a 42p chicken and vegetable tart, a 58p shepherd's pie and a 53p chorizo and roasted vegetable pizza.

Probably the most famous blogger of low-cost recipes is Jack Monroe, who was forced to live on £10 a week with her toddler. Her carrot, cumin and kidney bean burgers cost just 10p each, while baked fish with tomato sauce can come in at well under a pound a head.

Meanwhile, Skint Dad offers a range of 'fakeaway' recipes aimed at replacing expensive takeaways, from curries to doner kebabs - perfect for keeping the kids onside. There's also plenty of tips for making the most of things you might have thrown away, from carrot tops to stale bread.

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