AIBU to think food and cookery shows do not help people?

[NolittleBuddahsorTigerMomshere]

I am not talking about helping people to learn new cookery skills here. I am talking about the way in which they provide confusing and contradictory messages. The main example being the implications that we are all poisoning our DCs if we do not feed them Organic, Free Range Hand reared food (esp. meat). So is it any wonder that some parents turn to ready meals and cheaper frozen meats such as nuggets, rather than 'risking' ordinary fresh produce from supermarkets, which seems to be either ignored or maligned by celeb chefs and the media?

Sorry for the rant, but this has been niggling at me recently and boiled over yesterday when I was unlucky enough to catch a Clarrisa Dickson Wright programme on the beeb wanking on about how we should all be eating rare breed British pork, rather than mass produce.

I am very conscious of animal welfare and by the very best we can afford (Small amounts of Waitrose Essential Meat) but it irritates me when people with very large budgets -- JO take note, lecture ordinary struggling parents, who are doing the best they can.

Thanks MrsDe, so glad I'm not alone!

I think I'd rather risk ordinary meat or non organic produce than eat anything processed or a ready meal. I haven't seen the show you mentioned but Clarissa is hardly the most inspiring tv chef. Any tv cookery show that inspires people to cook from scratch has to be a good thing. I found some of Jamie's shows have been very inspiring and also the recent Hairy Bikers diet shows.

It's not the from scratch thing, is often cheaper, it's the wankery: hand reared by an all female cooperative bla bla bla

As MrsDe says

These cookery shows are designed to be aspirational, not to be taken as gospel

Exactly that. Read, digest, get a grip. And as for being 'sensitive' over the editorial content of a television programme - go get another grip. Maybe buy one, get one free somewhere?

If she thinks it's important for people to eat rare breeds and help preserve them, she should say so. What's the alternative, having everyone toe a party line about ... food? Seems a bit OTT.

I love Bake Off even thought I am 100% certain anything Paul Hollywood considers well-made would be saltier than licking the beach. It's not all realistic.

There is an unfortunate practical problem with recommending hand reared, organic, rare breed food.

We just could not produce enough of it so we would have to import it or turn to mass produced home grown food..... erm .... which is like what we already do in the real world.

That said, I think some of the more technical cookery shows that take the time to describe actual techniques are good.

I love cookery shows.... Apart from nigella, I often feel like punching her in the face! Ayway, I don't really think they preach about organic. I'm hard pushed to remember watching one where they told me that's what I should buy.Hugh FW told us all to buy free range eggs, but I kind of think stuff like that sometimes needs to be bought to our attention.

JO is a bit irritation but I am glad my kids aren't eating turkey twisters.

This is ridiculous. A chef is there to show his cookery skills - how could he or she do so if he were advocating nuggets or ready meals. This is a non-point,

CheCazzo to use a well know MN phrase 'Did you mean to be so rude and unpleasant?'

As I said before, I really just wanted to have a general discussion, not to endure or engender bitchiness and jibes, but some posters obviously can't help themselves...

I think the OP is presenting a bit of a cop-out, an excuse for eating poorly.

There is a point to get people to think about where their food comes from, the treatment of animals and producers.

That is why we have fair trade movements, buy local, sustainable agriculture, humane animal treatment, food miles and eating local and seasonal produce etc.

It is one more aspect of being a responsible citizen, just as recycling is.

Ethical and humane meat is more expensive, but why should meat be cheap? Better to eat less, have meat more infrequently, than promoting factory farming.

I think if people actually went to a factory farm and abattoir, they would be put off meat forever.

I agree that many cookery shows are not that great.

The Aussie master chef with children, though, was inspirational. Children as little as 10 or 12 having an amazing repertoire of dishes and respect for food and flavours. I imagine they will grow up to have good eating habits and hopefully pass that down to their children and the next generation

Flatbread, FYI I cook everything from scratch, have to due to allergies and religious restrictions, so shows what you know. MrsDe has understood exactly what I mean: Christ only knows what they do to Kerri across the road who has never learnt to cook and was raised on processed food herself.

I don't think you can generalise, I think there have always been certain tv chefs (Delia back in the day, Jamie at the beginning of his career) who really do get people cooking, and others who put people off.

Sometimes, though, they are absolutely right to emphasise the quality of the food. My mum thought she had somehow lost the ability to make pork crackle properly until she found out about how the quality of a lot of it has declined (too little fat under the surface, too much moisture in the outer skin) and if you manage to buy the right stuff it is easy.

We have programmes about huge, fabulously decorated houses - does that make people say "oh, I can't afford a 10-bedroom mansion, I'll have to go for the mouldy studio flat"?

What cinnamon said..^^. And all the aspirational "organic, free-range, not being hideously cruel to pigs" stuff has meant that consumer/media pressure has worked.

Hugh Furry Milkingstool and JO may be irritating - but now Helman, Mr Kipling and the like are made with Free Range Eggs. You can get more Free Range chicken. I now know to look for British bacon/pork - and to make sure it is British pork and not just British cured (and therefore danish-reared bacon).

I buy less of it and bulk it our with more vegetables. Yes I may b MC and therefore can afford to yadeyadeyde...

But if irritating TV chefs hadn't liked about it we wouldn't be aware of it.

Buy the best you can. Don't complain about people trying to encourage the nation to aim for the best. If you don't like it don't watch it. And if you do not like a difference of opinion do not post in AIBU!

• talked about it

Fish It's not the differences in opinion I don't like, it's the rude and judgmental way in which they are expressed which I dislike.