To have found this blog about childhood obesity intensely smug and annoying?

[MalenkyRusskyDrakonchik]

agirlcalledjack.com/2013/06/13/dont-blame-poverty-for-your-childs-obesity/

Is it just me ... what kind of la la land does she live in, where everyone who is struggling for money lives in a nice house with a cooker and has plenty of time from not working two jobs to bake bread?

What she is describing is the sort of sensible cost-cutting I would expect most people who're struggling for money but not absolutely on the bones of their arses could do. I get what she's saying, I do, but the smug tone coupled with the failure to realize that quite a lot of very poor people don't actually have good enough cooking facilities to do what she describes is getting me down.

Am I being mean?

Plus the 'chicken to feed a family for a week' makes me slightly suspect her of embroidered truth.

[Mylovelyboy]

BMW6 spot on. I am on a budget and do sometimes pop in waitrose to buy their cheaper 'essential range'. I think i am getting a bargin but when it somes to coughing up at the checkout i realise its not cheap at all. Aldi and Lidl for fruit and veg and the butchers for meat. We have a wonderful butchers in our village and the meat is very reasonable for the lovely quality. WHATS4TEAMUM - I bought a piece of Wookey Hole Cheese in waitrose the other day. Cost me £4.75 for a lump. What the hell I would do with the remaining £5.25 to last me the week. I dont think this girl lives in the real world to be honest.

[BMW6]

Poor people are not overweight.

If you are fat, you are not poor by definition. You are eating more calories than you are burning.

There is no such thing as a Poor Fat Person.

End of discussion.

[whats4teamum]

I apologise if anyone has already mentioned this but she has a nice glossy spread in Waitrose magazine this month.

Shopping in waitrose on £10 a week. Good luck.

[Mylovelyboy]

This blogger is not my cup of tea at all. Im on a budget and you can make decent meals from scratch really cheaply. You dont have to be a trained chief to make a nice home made soup, pasta dish, omlette etc. I have to say that i can quite easily knock up a decent meal out of completely not much at all, that takes not much time whatsoever. I think people have to use a bit of imagination. You can have decent (not cheap value / prepacked shite) food at a cheap rate if you know what to buy. I popped in Iceland the other day to get some milk (not my usual shop). I was at the check out and the shit the lady in front had on the counter was unbelievable. Never even heard of the brands and they were not cheap either. Some people need educating.

[ThornSayre]

There is even a painstakingly-drawn zombie!

Still, at least the comments were fair. I am delighted that Jack has been asked to do a web-chat. Should be great

[GalaxyDefender]

Why, why, WHY would someone ignore the massive red "This thread is ancient, are you sure you want to post?" marker and revive a dead thread? Why? Even if it's to be nice, like has happened here.

Better to start a new thread next time, Shonajoy

[fatlazymummy]

I made Jack's falafels the other day, the nicest ones I've ever had. And the prices were accurate, for those who want to nit pick or call her a liar.I shop in Sainsbury's as well, so to the person who asked where can you buy pitta breads for 22p?They're Sainsbury basics. You know, the ones in the white and orange wrappers.
If you read this Jack, thank you and keep up the good work.
Should also mention ,there's quite a few other frugal blogs online, with similar pricing and recipes.

[Heartbrokenmum73]

Bashing 'Jack' again? Seriously? This was done a week/two weeks ago. And you know she's a MNer don't you? Last thread (which was also a nasty, sneery thread) she came on to defend herself. I really hope she does so this time too - some of you are awful people.

The last thread was saying that she 'only played at being poor' and now there are people on this thread calling her a liar. Nasty.

[GreenVelvet]

Moomin, re. Welsh valleys, yes I understood that tradition of interest in intellectual side of things, literature and so forth in all kinds of families. Your average person e.g. bus driver, mechanic could often recite poetry, etc.

It is sad if that has changed ...

[Shonajoy]

She didn't give up her job, when she had her child she asked for flexi time, day shifts, part time, even could she bring her child to work. All her shopping is done at sainsburys using their value products, which she costs individually. I've done a couple of her recipes out of interest and they're pretty bland and studenty but her child seems to be not fussy at all and eats everything he's given apparently, which is good. I'm not mad on her use of tinned potatoes and veg, but apparently this is to save money on fuel. I'm also surprised that the father of the child allows his kid to live in such food poverty, given she constantly praises him and says he's a very involved and caring father. She now has a book deal- I will be interested to see if she still keeps this kind of cooking up now she will have much more money. Also, the book contains 100 recipes- if you follow her blog you can get loads free on there if you're interested, the falafels were actually quite good. I'm not mad on her either, she rubs me up the wrong way and gets very snotty when questioned which I don't think is going to help her cause.

[Dahlen]

Maybe it's because I read the BBC article about her using foodbanks first, but I'm failing to be offended by her blog. I think the point she makes about people needing to learn to cook is a valid one.

I don't think clever cooking is the complete answer to poor people's nutritional needs by itself, but it's certainly a part of the puzzle. For those saying it's patronising I can assure you that there are plenty of people out there - from all classes - who still don't know that most ready meals are full of crap. The MC are particularly guilty of this with their Waitrose ones which are, of course, a better class and therefore excepted from the ready meals are crap argument. This isn't about class, it's about education about food.

I know someone who doesn't buy ready meals but does eat poorly IMO. She wouldn't know where to start with making her own white/cheese sauce, using a tin of tomatoes and some spices instead of a jar of Dolmio. She simply doesn't have the confidence to experiment unless someone formally teaches her. She doesn't have the confidence to attend a community-based workshop where she could learn these skills either. She's a good mum doing her best to feed her child better but she's ignorant about food.

Many people don't want schools to step in to what they see as a parent's role. I get that. I sympathise with the argument. However, with child abuse on the increase, poverty on the increase, obesity on the increase - leaving these things to the parents - who don't have the skills themselves to pass on to their children - clearly isn't working. All that does is cement the advantages of the better-educated well off. If we want things to change, someone has to start teaching this stuff. Schools are the ideal venue because education for children is compulsory. While we're at it we could extend the school day and solve half the nation's childcare problems as well. We;d have to pay greater tax, but with fewer people suffering diet-related health problems and fewer people unable to work because of childcare problems, there would be more people in work to pay those taxes.

It's not fair to castigate people for not being able to get by in France if you've never taught them French.

[chillinwithmyyonis]

I'm deffo gonna try her fish paste pasta, I've not perused sandwich pastes for years, if something good can come from fish paste the woman is a genius

[TexasTracy]

Wow, I've obviously not been back to Blighty in a while...when did British people get so freely argumentative? I remember feeling weird in the 90s voicing my opinions on the uselessness of infant potty training and usefulness of mixed feeding...whilst hoping I wasn't offending anyone!

I enjoy the Jack Monroe food writing, especially since poverty isn't the same post-Thatcher-years: you can be doing great one year and slide off the face of the earth financially the next.

My ( 60s ) generation expected to have continual financial progress as long as we were sensible and worked hard. I'm not sure it's the same today in Britain...I don't even remember there being food banks in the UK when I lived there.

[Trills]

starkadder it's only iPhone 4 and later that use microSIMs, and you can get plastic converters that turn microSIMs back into regular-sized SIMs for a few pence.

Don't try to pick apart stories on technicalities unless you actually know what you are talking about.

[Offred]

That wasnt my assumption though haunted. I read the blog, I explained it was based on her £27k per year career at 23 in the main, yet you continued putting your agenda onto me.

[expatinscotland]

So true, Haunted.

[expatinscotland]

The class system and its perceptions will be the death knell of this nation, which is slowly eating itself from within.

[starkadder]

You can't put iPhone sims into ancient Nokias. Different size SIM cards.

[HauntedArmchairOfDoom]

I haven't! I'm not a huge fan of hers but everyone is so positive about that one I have it in one of my guilt-piles...I'll dig it out!

[MoominMammasHandbag]

Have you read that AS Byatt novel "The Children's Book"? It is quite interesting about working class people embracing education in Edwardian times.

[HauntedArmchairOfDoom]

Oh don't be silly, that wasn't a full on assault! Meh, I took issue with your assumption that demonstrating resourcefulness and what-not excludes an individual from being working class. Doesn't seem to me to be all that surprising someone might disagree, but whatever.

Yes moonin it is vay VAY hard and attainment of G5 should be greeted with MUCH praise and treats

[MoominMammasHandbag]

Tis grade 5 Haunted. The DCs assure me that's very tricky .

[Offred]

Except no-one has said being working class is an insult apart from you. It is certainly not what I've said. I've simply spoken about the advantages having a better standard of living/income measurably bring. I think you are being deliberately obtuse because what you would like is for me to be conveying these sterotypes. You certainly launched into a full on assault before asking what reasoning there was behind my comment.

The BBC's class measurement is not the trad economic classification by the sounds of it.

[HauntedArmchairOfDoom]

Well FRANKLY Moomin after the council estate debacle I don't know what to believe anymore

No it shouldn't be surprising. Although Satie is very easy to play

[MoominMammasHandbag]

I has a bloke round to fix my gas boiler the other day. He had a knowledgable chat with me about my hardy perennials, admired my piano, and knocked out a bit of Satie. Oh yeah, and he fixed the boiler. I nearly ran off with him.
Shouldn't be remarkable should it?