Cost of living: People in Cardiff ‘eating pet food’

40 comments
  1. Is buying pet food actually cheaper than something like potatoes which have a high nutritional content? It might be considered boring food but I’d rather live on boiled spuds than eat dog food.

  2. What?! No one is eating pet food. That is just a lie.

    You can buy a bag of potatoes, multipacks of cheap beans, noodles, amongst other things for dirt cheap.

    Going on the Asda website you can buy 4 cans of beans for 25p each. That’s a whopping £1. Potatoes £1.25. Noodles 28p-32p. Rice 48p.

    Pretty much for around £5 you could have that every day for evening meal if need be. Not ideal and I’ve had to do it myself for about 6 months.

  3. Surely there are many things that are cheaper than pet food, so i sense bullshit here

    Quick search on Tesco website says 27p for a tin of beans, which is much cheaper than a tin of dog/cat food

  4. The amount that even the cheapest cat food has gone up over the last six months makes me call bullshit on this. Can probably get three tins of budget beans for the price of one value tin of cat food in Aldi

    So maybe people in Cardiff just like eating pet food?

  5. Get a grip. Pet food isn’t cheap, if you are really struggling what the hell have you got pets for? I really don’t believe this

  6. Why even write such a bullshit article?

    There’s literally no reason to tell this lie; everybody already knows how much people are struggling and absolutely nobody believes people are buying pet food instead of “real” food because it’s cheaper.

  7. They make Wales look like an utter hell hole and it really annoys me. We’re not eating pet food. If someone said that they were either exaggerating for effect “I’ll have to eat the pet food next everything is so expensive,” or they’re having a mental health crisis. The way BBC portrays us as bum fuck idiots is so wrong.

  8. This is nothing. In my neck o the woods people are struggling so much that some of them are eating their pets!

  9. My mum and dad once had a massive argument so she baked him a pie with dog food in. Sat there whilst he ate it and he said it was the best pie he’d ever eaten.

  10. Dog food is more expensive than vegetables and tins of people food. Even tins of meat products.

    What are the BBC trying here?

  11. Pet food now costs more than most tinned alternatives intended for human consumption, so I call absolute bullshit on this nonsense.

  12. For those pointing out that cooking pasta, potato etc is very cheap, this is true. But only if you have cooking facilities (so not people in temporary accommodation) and can afford to use the gas/electric.

    Food banks are anecdotally being asked for things that don’t need cooking because people can’t.

    I guess pet food doesn’t need cooking. I’d still choose the tin of beans though.

  13. Why are so many people’s first reactions ‘this is a lie’? The article details this as one of numerous examples of poverty a case worker has seen, another example being someone trying (in desperation, I’d imagine) to heat food on a radiator.

    It’s not saying someone is actively going out and buying pet food to eat for themselves, which wouldn’t be the cheapest option (rice and tinned food is the cheapest way to feed yourself albeit bland). It’s more ‘they have so little money they’re desperately searching through cupboards for *anything* vaguely edible… including perhaps a long forgotten tin of cat food…

  14. The cheapest tin of pet food costs twice as much as the cheapest tin of beans.

    I don’t question the integrity of Mr Mark Seed, I’m just saying if people are eating pet food it’s because they want to.

  15. Maybe I was raised unconventionally but I’m always surprised that people do this kind of thing rather than shoplifting, or at least going into supermarket bins if they’re totally destitute.

    Surely at some point self-preservation should kick in?

  16. Lies / Fake

    I’m sorry but you would go overdrawn / credit card / ask a neighbour / beg for a £1 / use a food waste app / steal before eating pet food

    If you’re eating pet food then you deserve to

  17. This is what happens when people vote incompetent people into political office. The UK government has been pretty incompetent since Brexit.

    Isn’t it time for people to call for a general election and elect better people into power?

  18. This was a rumour that went around in the 1970s, I remember hearing it as a kid then, strangely a time when the cost of living was far too high, most people seemed to be out on strike and massed power cuts.

  19. My aunt and uncle are the quintessential upper middle class living in Berkshire with a boat on the Thames. Very wealthy, both retired early on large pensions etc. They got bored though and started to work at a food bank. Then it hit them and they completely changed their views on politics and the world. It was a story like this that made them do a complete 180 on everything. They werent overtly tory, but they voted that way because they always had etc.

    They now work basically full time in the community doing whatever they can.

    When I used to work at the food bank near where my parents live I was basically broken after every shift and that was prior to 2019.

  20. Not only that, diseases like scarlett fever and tb are coming back. The current government have truly fucked the population and they are not in the slightest bit bothered, we’re going backwards and they’re only getting richer They don’t use state schools or state healthcare, so why would they care if these basic infrastructures are failing. They keep trying to make strikers out to be the bad guys, no mate they are your population and they’re done.

  21. Profiteering and the brotherhood .ain’t gonna stop while the insiders are bleeding us dry and living high on our misery. Government doing nothing to stop it as they are profiteering off the back of investment

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