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.

And more cars on the roads so no playing, smaller houses and gardens, more children travelling everywhere in cars and a culture of consumerism meaning branded food is conferring status.

Could I feed myself and a small ahold for £10 for one week? Yes. Would I want to do it long term? No. But you could do it if you absolutely HAD to, and had the time to walk to a big asda or market.

offred, not at all, it was in the 1970-1980s.

Most of my school friends' mothers worked outside the home. They ranged from bank clerks to maids to teachers.

There simply were no convenience foods in the shops, apart from in the expensive supermarkets for tourists.

Yes, I have made many many stews! They do take time as traditionally the cuts of cheap meat needed a long cooking time.

They are cheap, nutritious, delicious and, bar the initial prep, cook themselves.

Beats pierce and ping shite into a cocked hat!

I'm just not seeing the smug, I'm sorry. I think she makes some very valid points and it is perfectly possible to feed a family well on very little money. It's about educating people which is absolutely the key and what she's trying to do.

I totally agree that money management and real cookery skills need to be taught properly in schools though.

My family had very little money when I was young. It was made worse by the fact that my Mum couldn't cook very well and we existed on freezer food which cost a fortune. My Mum is now a much better cook and admits life would have been so much easier if she'd been able to cook then, unfortunately my Nan can't cook either and still just exists on beans, tinned spam sandwiches and baking fairy cakes.

I taught myself to cook, partly out of fear that I couldn't but luckily found I really enjoyed it. I was shit for years but I liked doing it anyway! A spell of massive financial hardship where I was selling furniture to eat meant I learned pretty bloody quick.

I'm lucky to have an Aldi a couple of miles away and even now that I have no financial worries, I still feed a family of 4 for £60 a week including a wine box. Old habits die hard but I like it, it feels like a safety net.

I'm gobsmacked by some of the reactions on this thread. For crying out loud, this woman has been struggling to get by on no money, has figured out how to feed her child healthily on an extremely limited budget, has dared to talk about it and about how some people spend loads on crap ready meals and get fat, while whinging about their poverty. As far as I can see from looking at her blog, she has walked the walk.

And people are sniping at her because her figure of £10 per week food budget might be out by a few quid??? And how very DARE she go and get a book deal, and maybe have a bit more money, and maybe get herself out of the poverty trap!

If I were more cynical then I am I'd think that a certain subset of MN's compassionate hand-wringers actually prefer poor single mums to look helpless, uneducated, depressed and disempowered, rather than resourceful, articulate and determined like Jack Monroe. Far more gratifying to have the poor looking uniformly vulnerable and in need of patronising excuses compassion.

I think it's really patronising too OTheHuge

I agree, Manatee.

I can see some problems with home cooking if you are skint - cost of equipment might be a barrier, I suppose.

And how to start building up store cupboard ingredients such as spices and stocks needed to make food taste good.

Also it's hard to change family habits once established, we have all heard the howls of anguish when you present something new and if you are inexperienced cook it might not taste nice anyway.

Also basic cooking skills not handed down - I still get tips from my mother about roasting meat, making gravy etc abd it's great because she gives me a basic nice recipe not something with goji berries and kumquats like these celeb chefs.

There is a fab thread somewhere on mumsnet about posh food which is really very simple and the recipes were fab.

It's not patronising manatee it's that fact that her whole point is that you can feed an adult and a toddler for £10 per week, I don't think you can and others imply she hasn't been honest about that either.

It isn't that I'd prefer all example of single parents to be the daily fail kind it's that I think, similar to disability campaigns attacking long term unemployed, it is nasty to attack other people, who inevitably have different circs to you in a "I'm the good kind" sort of a way, how is that challenging the stereotype at all?

If she'd have made a helpful post actually explaining how the money and the labour are organised so that people could both learn how to do it from her blog and see how she managed it then that would have been helpful. What she's done is written a judgy post without backing it up in any way and that smacks of "I'm not like those bad ones, don't tar me with the same brush" which really is another way of perpetuating the discriminatory attitudes...

Totally agree kiriwawa.

There was a study done very recently about the varying fatness of children, where they used postcodes to assess socio economic status. Was on BBC too, but can't remember details.. Anyway it found that the better off kids were actually fatter. I can see this for myself too, as I moved from council Ville to posh land, and the richer kids are fatter. They dont play out, like the kids on the estate did, and they are driven everywhere.
I was once in exactly the situation jack molone was in, single mum, baby, waiting for cash. I am a master at cheap meat free cooking, but still couldn't do it on a tenner a week. And wouldn'twant to. Yeah, for a month, you can go really frugal. But year in year out? Food is a joy to me, and no, having heard this woman on tv, I dont thinkshe does like food much. She struck me as very ascetic.
Whatevs. Its good to cook, and cook healthy stuff, but she is smug as all get out.

smug seems to mean .."doesn't feed her kid ready meals and shit like I do".... sorry, but the definition of smug as seen on this thread does not bear any resemblance to normality or the English language. Congrats for making me want to leave MN for the first time ever

this was the thread if anyone's interested not cheap but yummy

Thing is Jack is obviously a smart, resourceful, energetic young woman who found herself in difficult circumstances but was able to find solutions.
Many people in poverty are disabled, sick, have mental health problems or addiction issues. There a many reasons why they may not be capable of cooking themselves and their kids a lovely meal from scratch using very cheap ingredients.
Clever, ingenious people are often able to live very cheaply. Not so clever or poorly people often have to go for the easiest option, not the cheapest.

It's not a great post. The rest of the blog is really interesting but that post is just a bit "well I could do it so if you can't it's all your own fault for being rubbish / lazy / stupid."

Reposting without swearing because some delicate soul thought I was de trop because it took me ages to type and I was on the phone to my mum it's an important point.

[I don't think that's terribly fair] hugemanatee. I am a single mum who's lived on benefits.

I think some of you are missing the point of the posts on the thread.

I can't speak for anyone else but it's not her general point that I have a problem with (that actually crap food is err crap) but the patronising, chastising, blaming tone she adopts.

I applaud her blog - I think drawing attention to how hard it is to feed a family on benefits; how it possible to find more nutritious ways of feeding a family on very little money; how meat isn't the be all and end all of meals etc - is absolutely brilliant. And I'm delighted she's got so much coverage.

I don't like this post though - which is what this thread's about.

The woman who claims her kids are fat because all she can afford is processed crap to feed them?

I understand outrage, pity, even the blogger's apparent superior smugness. Anger at the system that's failed to educate her.

But the apologists on this thread baffle me. It's just NOT OK.

I don't feed my children ready meals, not ever, I just am willing to have sympathy for people who do and to listen to why they do and although I can see why she might be drawn into this judgy kind of post, I think it is smug and unhelpful and it would have been better to use the opportunity to equip others with her knowledge and experience but I doubt it is really achievable strictly in the way she says. I think the post is more about trying to distance herself from association with 'that kind of single mum'.

kiriwawa I was that child - mum had me at 16 in 1985 and I spent my early years as a child of single parent family in Thatcher's regime. Still don't think the post is smug - it is harsh but fair. Ready meals are not cheaper than cooking and are a symptom of laziness, not lack of time. I work 70 hours a week and I cook from scratch, if I have no time I batch cook soups etc and keep them in the fridge.
Fair if people admit they can't be arsed to do this, but let's not blame poverty.

imademarion - my point exactly, only better phrased.

No-one has said it is ok though imadmarion have they, they've said they dislike the tone of the response and think it isn't helpful.

I agree it is theoretically possible to cook cheaply. I do it but am under no illusions about the privileges that allow me to do it; education about health, access to cooking equipment and time saving devices, being a SAHM, being able to bulk buy, being resourceful and knowing how to cook and cook frugally etc.

offred plenty of posters saying "oh maybe mother doesn't have time aftr working two jobs"// "maybe they want to feed their kids a treat to cheer them up" etc - read over the thread, there are lots of apologists for this behaviour.

But those are reasons not apologies and TBF if you want to achieve anything that will actually help improve the situation and not just moralise smugly you need to understand why people use ready meals.

No they are excuses, not reasons. I am exhausted after work but I would never feed my children ready meals.