"they ate fast food and junk food but had splashed out of a plasma TV."

[ConfusedPixie]

This comment just came up on the radio news, supposedly said by Jamie Oliver about one of the families he was working with in his new TV show.

AIBU to wonder how the fuck what you eat relates to what TV you have?

Surely this just reinforces stereotypes of the people likely to have bad diets through lack of education on the matter? What a bullshit statement.

Noobieteacher has it occurred to you that no amount of cooking programmes will stop some poor people from eating crap?

Has it ever occurred to you that it's not the fact that they haven't been taught the correct middle class mores of healthy cooking? It's just that they like burgers, kebabs and chips?

If it was purely a matter of the ignorant poor spending their money on TVs so they have to eat shit how come we have people like Philip Green, Dawn French, Rosie O'Donnell, Kirstie Alley, Oprah Winfrey, to name but a few who are fat.

Some people eat too much and are greedy. It's a fact of life, some always will be. But when you're poor this is somehow seen as a terrible moral failing on which you should be lectured by the likes of Jamie Oliver who quite frankly looks like he's eaten quite a lot of organic farmers market pies himself.

Many people rich and poor are just not interested in cooking.

They prefer TVs.

He's 10 years out of date with this. He's banging on like it's still the boom years where people will listen to crap about fresh and organic what nots from the farmers market and nod and smile and rush out and get it.

Nigel Slater is the same, his programme on cooking on the cheap is full of him popping down to the expensive local Italian deli and picking up artisan chorizo and iberico ham.

The thing is though that at least with Nigel he's open that it's aimed at the middle class and is slightly cheaper cooking for the middle classes.

At least it's not Jamie Oliver lecturing them on their moral failings for which he has the magic answer if only they will hand over £25GBP to him for a copy of his book.

They eat TV's. Is there a JO recipe for that. I bet it would taste lovely with some harissa paste and rocket.

He gets bitched at because people are so cynical that they can't just ignore something that they don't like, or try to open their minds a little bit to try and see where he's coming from.

He is someone that has a tiny bit of influence because of his money, fame, and popularity, and he's trying his best to use it positively.

I find it hard to believe that some people would rather that no one cared enough about the diets of the nations children to say anything when the health of generations is at stake.

When I was a child healthy eating wasn't on the agenda for the majority of people, and now we have record levels of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. But all the Jamie Haters are right, we should just let that continue and get worse, and not bother trying to make healthy eating something the majority do unless we can do it perfectly without ever making even the smallest mistake.

PostBellumBugsy you are right. I also think part of the reason has nothing to do with food as well. As you say poor people have never had a particularly good diet, I know with my family there was a lot of faggots, bread, dripping and tripe.

But they did manual jobs which burnt of the calories or did hard housework. Those manual jobs don't exist in anywhere near the numbers that they used to, and of course housework is not that back breaking anymore. But lets ignore this fact and simply blame it on the poor being greedy piggies.

just realised I meant Jowly Oliver not Jubbly Oliver. there's an insult gone wrong.

Yes brokensunglasses, because the government doesn't spend absolutely millions on the public health message and Change for Life.

But that's completely useless, what we need is a fat superannuated millionaire to preach to us about how we dreadful we are for being overweight whilst desperately hoping that the make up and lighting department have managed to hide his double chins.

I think that what he said has been totally and utterly taken out of context.

He is talking about our dependency on cheap crap food. Our dependency on supermarkets. Something is wrong when it is cheaper to buy crap processed food rather than fresh food and cook from scratch.

When I was a child healthy eating wasn't on the agenda for the majority of people, and now we have record levels of obesity, diabetes and heart disease

Same here. That superfood, the Findus Crispy Pancake, formed a large part of my diet. Yet I was skinny and so were many others because when I was growing up there was a lot more walking to local shops rather than out-of-town supermarkets and manual jobs to be done.

x-post with seasick

broken sunglasess is right. And just because the government are trying to improve things doesnt mean other people cant too.

That Change for Life stuff is a load of crap.

What we really need is a tax on the crap and the good fresh stuff to be VAT free, and that includes meat. THAT way healthy meals will more more affordable, crap more expensive, and I'll bet in a few years we'll see the nations waistlines slim down a few inches.

The tax on the crap goes to educating people how to cook well, eat well and budget well.

Remind me who are in cahoots with the supermarkets and giants like Nestle again? Oh yeah. Well, that's THAT idea out of the window.

of course there are people that spend money on takeaways and other unnecessary shite, but this doesn't mean JO can preach about meals on a budget, when that isn't a realistic budget. he genuinely hasn't a clue what it's like to have a restrictive amount of money, because he's never experienced it.

This is a decent response I think

www.northsouthfood.com/dear-jamie-oliver/

Yes of course something needs to be done about the nation's diet problem but there needs to be some realism about it.

The government campaigns are only a part of what needs to be done, and just because the government is providing something about heathy eating, that doesn't mean that no one else should.

The government spends millions on lots of things, like treatments and support for people with MS for example, but there is still a massive need for the work done by the charity sector.

The government didn't do anything about improving school meals until Jamie Oliver publicised how crap they were.

And why is it ok to keep calling him fat when if someone posted about poor woman being fat then they would rightly be told why they were wrong for saying it? Is it ok to bitch about people as long as they are successful and have money, because I might have missed that memo?

I don't object to the message 'everyone should eat more healthily'

I do object to the message' poor people are all fat lazy tv watching pigs'

I agree usual

Why does it feel like 90%of people on this thread haven't actually read the article because if they had they would see it's been taken out of context. They would rather use it as an excuse to jump on the one of the few people who gives a shit enough to stick their neck on the line, even if they don't do it in the most tactful way. It's true he can't do much but 'we' can, the people can, but instead we'll spend the time criticising someone's appearance and the fact that they're rich because they've worked hard. Go figure

So what shall we do next? Mn campaigns are brilliant. Will it be our next thing?

He's not saying that though usual. He's pointing out that some people, have the wrong priorities. Not just poor people, as evidenced by the fact that many of his recipes are not that cheap to make.

What a campaign to stop poor people watching TV?

Or buying overpriced cookbooks?

I don't like the assumption that he is talking about 'poor people' either.

There are plenty of families who are well off who are overweight because they eat too much. I can think of several acquaintances who shop in M&S exclusively fir ready meals, who think nothing of giving an already overweight four year old a large sausage roll as a mid morning snack. These are families with expensive cars, expensive holidays.

My children eat s fair amount of prepared food - fish fingers, beaked beans, sausages, sliced bread, but they are not overweight and also eat fruit, veg and salad.

Eating food too high in fat, sugar and/or salt is not a 'poor' problem. It is not about poverty, although poverty certainly makes lifestyle changes much tougher.

Start talking about helping folk in poverty rather than discussing how they should be fannying about with lentils, Jamie.

(By the way, I think Jamie is great, one if the few celebrities with a social conscience, at least he is trying to put something back)

I was thinking more to do with supermarkets, pricing and fresh ingredients versus ready meals

But he is preaching to people using sweeping stereotypes.

FarrowandBawl talking about a tax on food is again, just assuming this is a problem with poor people and that you need to price the crap out of their price ranges to stop the problem.

Why is it okay for the people who will still be able to afford it to eat it? Why isn't anybody worried about the fatty cheeses and meats delis sell to the middle classes? Or the ready meals in M & S? Or the cakes Patisserie Valerie sell?

Incidentally I think a tax on food which would essentially be the state dictating to people what they should eat would be far more morally wrong than someone on benefits eating a few cream cakes. That kind of attitude which denies the poor the basic freedom and self determination of deciding what the wish to eat and coercicng them into doing what the state and the middle classes deem they should be doing actually makes me feel physically sick. That's one step on the way to a totalitarian state.

Ubik it's not an assumption that he's talking about poor people. He has explicitly said it.