"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.

but SAF your view of What Children Eat is based on your own DCs. its not some golden worldwide rule.

As someone up thread said, it's bad enough being poor without having to eat lentils as well.

Gibber is right - the original article bears no resemblance to what is being reported. The press are just trying to rouse up hatred of Jamie (and obviously succeeding!) by picking out a few phrases and quoting them out of context.

The reason he is talking about poor people is because his new programme is about producing healthy meals cheaply and is aimed specifically at people on low incomes. His recipes may not be much help to people living in a b&b with only a microwave oven, but that doesn't mean that it is not worth doing! The programme may well help many other families to eat better.

The current childhood obesity problem should be of concern to all of us, with increasing numbers of children suffering health problems that should only develop in middle or old age. The implications of this on the future of the health service will affect us all.

He is basically saying that poorer people in Spain and Portugal are better off because they can still buy good cheap ingredients in the market. We have lost that culture in Britain, which forces low income families to rely on processed food to live.

Jamie is not the bad guy here - blame the supermarkets who helped put small independent shops out of business and replaced them with cheap, processed food full of crap on the one hand, while throwing away tons of perfectly good fruit and vegetables because they don't look perfect.

where have i said What Children Eat?

you just keep making stuff up to have a go at me about.

Does that make SAF's view any less valid than your own?

No it doesn't.

It isn't even a matter of what general children will or won't eat. It is JO generalising about vast swathes of the population and pissing people off.

mind you i did used to be a teacher and do still work with young people and used to be a nanny at uni so i suppose that i might have some general knowledge on children and food

enough to know a child who zooms around all day and is busy growing and building bones and muscle and teeth can't live on tomatoes and onions and lentils.

And I have the full article from the radiotimes and, although he does make some good points about people throwing away too much food, most of what he says is utter wank designed to make people feel guilty about their choices.

young people from what i see at work make choices based on money and satisfaction. £2 in the canteen could buy them a paltry salad or chips, cheese and gravy. unsurprisingly they choose the chips cheese and gravy.

I would take that quote with a pinch of salt, but if he did say it I think he would just have been demonstrating that nutrition and good quality food is a very low priority for many people, who will waste money on ready meals and takeaways and spend money on all manner of non-essential 'luxury' things before they'll justify buying fresh, reasonable quality ingredients to make cook-from-scratch meals. And the irony is that they can often be much cheaper. I think he probably has a point.

swallowedAfly DP is responsible for feeding about 450-500 3-11 yo every school day so i think we will be able to cope.

do you want to have the last word?
i can keep on and on. but its probably boring for everyone else.

The only time I would question whether cooking from scratch is cheaper is if you are cooking relatively complicated dishes with lots of ingredients, for just one or two people. Then it can become a false economy with lots of unavoidable wastage. But if you keep it simple I'm quite sure it will always be cheaper, especially for a large family.

obesity in Spain

oh and DP ran an early years unit for 90 3-6 yos.

certainly boring for me as you seem to be endlessly targeting me for your bile on the basis of... i'm not quite sure what.

i'd actually much rather you just stopped addressing me. you've already had one post deleted for breaking talk guidelines.

though you ask me things i reply, re: where did i say what children eat? and you don't address that but just think of something newly rude and confrontational to say. it is actually quite bizarre.

Is it just me or has anyone else read the thread title carefully and imagined some Feckless Poor surfing out of a television screen in the style of The Ring ?

'Splashed' makes me think of Baywatch.

I'll just leave that so its not too boring for other posters.

the feckless poor, coming out of a screen near you now.

swallowedAfly DP is responsible for feeding about 450-500 3-11 yo every school day so i think we will be able to cope

I thought he was a headteacher ?

well said indrid cold

Did he feed the 5O0 with a tin of tomatoes and an onion in a Jesus stylee?

So let's see what other things could be done to actuallyhelp the poor.

I left a little linky for Indridcold.

yes. he is a head now. so he knows about school diners. one of jamies successful campaigns.

but he was an early years teacher before that.