A Life Changed Through Nourishing Norfolk

Helen is young woman with a partner and a four-year-old daughter. She has two older grown-up children. Helen had always struggled being in crowds, finds chatting to mums outside the school gates intimidating and so has always found it difficult to find the 1:1 support she needs to grow her confidence. She has used food banks in the past, they were embarrassing but she “got over that”. She said her daughter was “living off” tinned spaghetti and she was buying the 8 for £10 meals from Iceland or anything she could throw in the oven like chips and pasta. She felt low in spirits and didn’t have the drive to cook and to make the life changes she knew she needed. She hated not having the energy to play with her daughter and inherently felt it was wrong that she wasn’t eating proper food that would be good for both of them, but it all felt too complicated. Helen signed up at the Social Supermarket because she needed some food. This is her story in her own words:

“I mainly came in for the cheap shopping at first and the free fruit and vegetables and the hub leader spotted that I wasn’t good, and she offered me some 1:1 support. From there I did the cooking class and learned different ways to cook. The tutor encouraged me to involve my daughter in cooking as she’s more likely to eat new food and be less picky if she helps in the preparation. I bought her a little knife set and she cuts up the vegetables with me. Before, I used to just chuck frozen stuff on trays and put it in the oven. There’s always good veg here I am eating a lot healthier, and she loves the fruit and veg. She likes roasted vegetables, and we were taught how to make vegetable nuggets during the school holiday class, she loves making them and dipping them in sauces. I’m making sweet potato chips tonight. I’d just run out of ideas for cooking and felt there was no reason to do it, but I had got fed up of eating the same thing every week with the 8 for £10 frozen meals. Here we learn how to make proper meals and sit down and eat it together afterwards. Coming here has given me so many opportunities, learning new things, and there is always someone to encourage me if I am down and I just need a private chat about something that is bothering me. We did Christmas dinners from scratch at one of the classes and I learned how to make proper gravy, I didn’t know how to do that. I’d looked stuff up online, but it was gobbledegook but here they explain, and the recipes are made easier. We learned how to make cooking sauces from scratch. We learned how to make cheese sauce, and I absolutely love stuff like that. I’d had a lot of food parcels in the past and we always got chickpeas, but we learned how to make humous from the tinned chickpeas in here, just plain or with garlic but I’ve experimented with adding spices like smoked paprika. I brought some in here for the others to try. I know how to make a goulash and things to make with tinned tomatoes. Things like this have really perked me up a lot more, it is not as hard as I thought it was. Her older brother eats £1 pizzas, and I keep saying, get up, cook. I wish I had something like this when he was younger.

I feel much more energised now, I walk everywhere, and I have even given up smoking. We go to the woods. We packed up a picnic during the holidays. She loved it. I would never have even thought of doing that before or that a child would like that. I thought you had to take them somewhere expensive. Thanks to this place, I have been able to save little bits of money which I am using so she can have a 5th birthday party. What is nice is that she understands money. I don’t want her to know things are hard, but it is also good that she also knows you can’t have everything. She can see me pushing myself and that is preparing her. They can tell when something is wrong with me here and they just give me that bit of extra encouragement. I really like that, I feel that I have got friends here. Everyone is shocked at how different I am over the last year. I was the girl that sat in the corner, I wouldn’t speak to people who were not familiar to me. I feel much more confident talking to people now. I am still wary, but my daughter is getting more confident and I think, if she can do it, so can I. I am a lot more relaxed. I used to be so stressed, but I wanted to do the right things for my daughter. I am now thinking with my daughter at school I can think about my future. I am helping with the community gardens and my daughter will come to that so she will know where food comes from. Because of this place and the skills I have learned I have been offered an apprenticeship. I am nervous, but I am excited for the future.”