Mothers in low-income households are going without food to ensure their families have decent meals, a study has shown.
The survey found women made do with toast or bread and crisps to give their children and husbands a proper dinner, or substituted an egg for meat on their own plates so that other family members did not go without.
Watering down milk and skimping on medically prescribed diets were other ways they used of making limited incomes stretch further.
The survey was carried out by Ms Anne Coakley of the School of Social Sciences, Dublin Institute of Technology, among 50 welfare-dependent mothers in a Dublin suburb.
She concluded that Government policy ignored the problem by making diet and nutrition a health issue rather than a social one.
"A health-dominated approach to food choices places a focus on personal responsibility for diet and assumes that income is not a limiting factor," Ms Coakley says in her report.
Ms Coakley's survey found most mothers bought fresh foods, in line with health recommendations, rather than dearer frozen or convenience foods.
But they also bought the cheapest varieties - rashers and sausages rather than chicken or steak - and supermarket or home- brand breakfast cereals and other produce.
If they had £10 extra per week to spend, they would opt for better quality food and luxuries such as biscuits, chocolate bars and yoghurts, for their children.
Treats for children were a particularly sensitive issue as most mothers wanted them to have "status foods" that they perceived were the norm for other children.
One mother, however, had switched from buying milk to minerals because milk was dearer.
The study found that most mothers walked one to two miles to the local shopping centre but others walked three miles to a shop where some prices were lower.
Most excluded their husbands or partners from shopping because they felt they would try to buy a greater quantity and variety of food than they could afford.
All the mothers alternated between buying a large bag of potatoes one week and buying washing and cleaning materials another week.
One mother said she could not afford the high-fibre products prescribed for her child's multiple health problems.
Another struggled with the cost of gluten-free foods for her coeliac daughter.
Christmas presented particular problems, with some mothers saving 10 months of the year through Christmas clubs to be able to buy basic festive foodstuffs.