As Universal Credit sanctions, benefit delays and in-work poverty continue to plague families across Liverpool, food banks remain a harsh reality of life.
Emergency food parcels, handed out by volunteer-run food banks across the city, provide a lifeline to people in a time of crisis.
Many food banks offer three-day emergency food parcels, giving people enough essential food and drink to get by on.
These parcels are not intended to be a long-term solution and are only meant to last a three-day stretch while the issues causing any crisis can be addressed.
It is estimated the average food bank user in Liverpool will access this emergency service 1.9 times - meaning parcels are only used for the short term and not for sustained periods.
Many of us can often take basic essentials like food for granted - but spending time at a north Liverpool food bank makes it painfully clear the struggle families are facing to provide for themselves.
Our reporter tried living off the contents of an emergency food parcel for three days to see what it is really like.
The parcel was bought and paid for by the reporter, using a list provided by the Trussell Trust food bank at St Andrew's Community Network in Clubmoor.
Day One: Taking up the challenge
It's a busy Monday night in the Asda on Smithdown Road and while students and other shoppers traipse up and down the aisles filling their baskets with food, I'm sticking to my list.
The food allocation was shared with me by Simon Huthwaite, operations manager at St Andrew's in Clubmoor , and it contains everything I'll be eating for the next three days.
Parcels like this are intended to last one or two people for a three day period - but I'll be eating my way through these meals alone.
Passing by the fresh fruit and veg and swerving all my usual favourites, I head to the aisles stacked with canned goods, ready to fill my basket.
Getting my haul home and laying it out on the table, the first thing that strikes me is the total absence of absolutely anything fresh.
All my food for the next three days will be canned, dried or processed.
This is born entirely out of necessity - when you're storing and processing donations from people, it's impossible to properly process perishable goods.
If you have too much, it ends up going to waste (or heading to a local farmer in the case of the out of date goods at St Andrews), and you don't want to give fresh goods to some and not to others.
St Andrew's is run under the Trussell Trust with a voucher model, where families are referred by a GP, teacher or member of DWP staff .
Simon 43, explained: "To access three days emergency food they get a voucher. That’s because we don’t know people’s situation. Volunteers shouldn’t have to make a judgement about that.
"We've got 400 voucher holders across the city for our food banks. There were 22,000 across the city last year, with 11,476 for north Liverpool last year."
The community network has 13 distribution centres in north Liverpool and eight debt management centres, all staffed by volunteers.
With all my food ready to start the challenge, I made my first meal.
Dinner: Tuna and brown rice
For my first dinner eating off the food parcel, I plated up some rice with a can of Smart Price tuna from Asda.
The rice was already in the cupboard, with around the 500g allocation left - but the tuna was one of my purchases towards the parcel.
It's a pretty bland meal, and a couple of bites in I scraped it into a bowl to mix up with dollop of mayonnaise, which made it go down a lot easier.
The food included in an emergency relief parcel isn't designed to be particularly exciting - it's intended to carry people through a time of hardship with enough sustenance to last them.
It was perfectly fine - I wasn't going to bed hungry, I'd had some protein and some carbohydrate and it wasn't too dissimilar to the kind of uninspired dinners I used to get through as a student.
I had a couple of biscuits for dessert, choosing to save my rice pudding for later in the challenge.
Day Two: the first full day of living off a food bank parcel
My first full day on the challenge coincided with pay day in the Liverpool ECHO newsroom.
While most of my colleagues were treating themselves to a bought lunch, swerving a packed lunch for a pay day treat, I was firmly sticking to the meals I'd planned.
Breakfast was a cup of oats, which I was using as my 'small packet of cereal', mixed in with some water to make a porridge.
Another plain meal, but another one that filled my stomach and kept me going throughout the morning.
Lunch was a tomato Cup A Soup, which felt decidedly sparse compared to the barms, salads and hot lunches being bought by my colleagues for their pay day lunches.
The soup didn't fill me up, so I snacked on a couple of my biscuits (rich tea, if you were wondering), to keep me going throughout the afternoon.
What struck me on my first day was how any kind of choice or agency is totally eroded by being reliant on an emergency parcel.
In a time of crisis, families are grateful for whatever they receive - but that doesn't mean someone's dignity and pride are unaffected by having their choice taken away over something as fundamental as what they can eat.
But St Andrew's are looking ahead to a bold new approach that could bring back the element of choice.
Simon told me: "We are going to be moving to a new model. We are now on a three year plan to guide distribution centres, with a food pantry.
"It's a fresh food shopping model where people are members and pay £3.50 a week for which they get access to £20-25 worth of produce. St George’s in Everton is going to be the first to get it in December.
"They will be able to fill the cupboards for less. A food bank is transactional - there’s little choice in that.
"What we want to do it give people choice. Kids are picky. Just because you’re in debt doesn’t mean you can’t still be proud and have preferences."
Dinner: Instant noodles and rice pudding
After work on my first full day of living off a food bank parcel, I went for a quick run and came home absolutely starving.
Normally, I'd cook some sort of pasta or curry to refuel after a run - but turning to my haul the options were less appealing.
Coming home to a cupboard full of items I didn't choose from a food allocation was tough after doing any sort of exercise - so it's hard to imagine what it must be like for anyone doing the same after a day of physical work.
Plenty of people accessing food banks across Liverpool are experiencing in-work poverty and relying on this to fill the cupboards despite being in employment.
Many of those experiencing in-work poverty are doing hard, physically demanding jobs all day - and the reality of their situation is stark.
I decided to have one of the items off the 'treats' list for when these items are available and opted for a pack of instant noodles.
These were another staple of my student diet, but aren't the healthiest choice as an adult.
For dessert I had half of the can of rice pudding, which genuinely did feel like a nice treat, and saved the second half of the can for the next night.
Day Three: more soup, mushy peas and some tinned spaghetti
Day three started exactly the same as the previous one - with some oats heated up with water to make porridge.
For lunch I swerved the Cup A Soup and had a can of soup, which was nice and hearty and warmed me up after a day spent out and about on jobs.
Back at home, my dinner options felt slightly limited in terms of actual meals I could cook.
There were plenty of things that would fill me up, but it was hard to see how I could cobble together these goods into a proper meal.
I ate a can of mushy peas and then warmed up the spaghetti and had that afterwards, with the second half of the rice pudding for dessrt.
Looking ahead to the next day, it would be another plain porridge breakfast and another can of soup for lunch.
It was at this point in the challenge that I started to get disheartened by the sheer amount of canned food that was making up my diet.
With a distinct lack of anything fresh or seasonal, it all felt a bit processed.
This isn't always the case, and Simon from St Andrew's told me that when families come to collect their parcel, there will be a big box full of fruit, veg and other 'treat' items that they can choose from to bulk up their shop and offer a bit more variety.
Simon told me: "In a crisis you're grateful for whatever you get. We have fresh veg and fruit on top of the standard parcel that's whatever we have that week."
It's only a small minority of cases where people are reliant on food bank parcels for an extended period - for example if an individual is on a 100 day sanction.
This is not meant to be a long term diet, and the staff at St Andrews are under no illusion that it's nutritionally ideal.
Simon said: "If someone keeps coming back three or four times, we’re asking why are they doing that. Why are they in a continued crisis.
"The three day package means that family has three days where they don’t have to worry about food and can focus on the crisis that has brought them to that place."
My three days spent living off an emergency food bank parcel weren't marked by hunger or want for basic sustenance.
But they were entirely devoid of any sort of choice - and that was the thing that stuck with me once the challenge was over.
Families across the city, both in work and out of work, increasingly find themselves being pushed closer to the edge because of circumstances beyond their control.
As the cost of living goes up and people are employed with unreliable hours or low pay, it takes even less of a crisis to put people in a situation where they can’t afford to eat.
Many people accessing food banks across the city have never used one before - and no one wants to find themselves in such a situation.
But being pushed to the point of food poverty doesn't mean sacrificing your pride, preferences or desire to control your own life.
