"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.

[CreatureRetorts]

Also as I've said more generally, why do we care if people (who may well be working) buy junk? Richer people do it all the time!

[Sirzy]

I think we do need to care becuse there is such an issue with obesity. Junk is fine as part of a balanced diet but for anyone to have a diet revolving soley around junk isn't good. We need to give people to tools so they can break that cycle themselves (If they want to of course)

The problem isn't the junk itself but the fact so many are stuck in that cycle.

[RoastedCouchPotatoes]

When I was below the poverty line, we couldn't afford a freezer. This meant a whole lot of food was out of our reach, obviously including a freezer.

As an aside, you know on the advert where he makes a dish costing £9 something, and said it was cooking cheap? What the hell? How is that cheap? He seems a bit misguided.

[RoastedCouchPotatoes]

I meant- including frozen junk food.

[LadyBarlow]

I'm a teacher & unfortunately it is true that some families seem to have poor cooking skills & awareness of what's healthy, I also feel some families do spend money on things I would class as luxuries ( weekly manicures, iPhones- Im not presuming this, the mums are very open & chat about their manicures & they're on their phones at drop off & pick up time) they do seem to have money for those things but their kids are often coming to school without breakfast.
I do a lot of cooking with my Rec kids & it staggers me the things they haven't tasted
I do worry enormously about lots of my pupils & their diet & their health.
I feel we now have a generation of parents who honestly do not know what is healthy & this is being passed on to their kids. For example, I've had a 4yr old in my class this yr who had so many black teeth, at home time mum often brought fizzy drink in a baby's bottle for her & massive bags of pick and mix!!
I think jamie is a bit misguided but to be honest, I think he's got a fair point.

[cory]

One issue that wealthy people tend to forget about is transport. If you are poor, then it won't help you that there are excellent bargains to be had at markets or farmshops or even supermarkets because you can't get there.

I have seen the corner shops near the local housing estates: they are grim. And overpriced. But if you can't afford to run a car, that is what you are stuck with.

Also fitting out a kitchen with pots and pans is expensive. You also won't have a large freezer so buying large bags of anything won't be feasible. And casseroles use up a lot of electricity, not great if you are on a metre.

[usualsuspect]

Good point about the plebs having TVs to watch his stupid face

Especially his sainsbos adverts.

Not exactly the cheapest place to.buy food is it.

[forevergreek]

Oh shit- the £4 beef prob is cheaper though

In our house it could be beef (£4 example), with roast veg - pototoes/ carrots/ parsnips(£1.50) = £5.50

Fishfingers from your example- £1, ( how many fishfingers?) im guessing we would need x2 boxes, so £2,chips £1, beans 55p= £3.55.

However from the beef joint we would then have enough beef leftover to turn into a beef and vegetable pie the next day. So £1.95 for beef (using difference between fishfinger total), 50p veg, 50p homemade pastry. So next meal £2.95

So more on one meal can be less on the other. The cost of say a bag of potatoes, carrots and parsnips is prob £2-3 and can be spread out throughout the week in various dishes. So you could make say potatoe dauphinois for say £1.80 ( potatoe/ cram/ stock cube/ onion), and this large dish would last x2 days as part of meal. So 90p. Adding Half of the £4 beef from above would only be £2.90

[farrowandbawl]

I have to agree with you on that Roasted. £9 isn't cheap for a meal it's about average and when you're skint, it's bloody expensive.

That £9 meal would have been half my weekly budget at one very, very low point.

[SeaSickSal]

I want to slap him round his fat entitled slack jawed face.

I hate the way that he talks about what he drops hints are the underserving poor - people who eat chips and have a big TV.

I hate the fact he makes sweeping statements 'seven times out of 10, the poorest families in this country choose the most expensive way to hydrate and feed their families. The ready meals, the convenience foods.' He can't back this up with facts and again it is pushing the idea that these people are not genuinely poor merely stupid and lazy.

He also says that they 'waste' too much because they go to supermarkets and buy 200g packets of things when they could just go to a market and buy the exact amount they need.

Yes Jamie. Because all of us in northern mill towns have farmers markets on our doorsteps within walking distance.

So there you go, Jamie Oliver worth £150 million says the poor are fat, lazy, wasteful, profligate and stupid.

Have you seen the recipes from his new 'cheap' cooking book? They would cost an absolute bloody fortune to make, he has no idea.

I'd love to ram his foccacia where the sun don't shine.

[Thymeout]

J.O. has done more than any TV chef to try to improve the nation's diet. The school meals initiative? The Ministry of Food programmes? Not to mention training up low-achievers to work as chefs in his 15 restaurants.

In the article, he was talking about a mother who routinely fed herself and her children takeaways. They were eating chips and cheese from the chippie, not as a treat or because she was pushed for time, but because she had no idea how to cook.

The big TV is a red herring - he just took it as evidence that it wasn't a question of desperate poverty.

Read Jack's blog for how to make nutritious meals on a v tight budget.

[englishteacher78]

Lentils don't necessarily improve a meal but they a cheap way of making a small amount of meat go further.

[FayeKorgasm]

I've always thought JO is an arse.

Every time he opens his mouth, he confirms my belief!

[OneStepCloser]

Its quite funny though, Jamies makes these remarks just before the start of his show, giving him some nice publicity. No doubt there will be a book, that will cost a fortune, telling us how to cook cheaply (oh the irony) and hey presto Jamies made another couple of million.

[Terrorvision]

This really gets my goat. I am on maternity leave and money is tight. I comb the Internet for cheap recipes and the supermarket for reduced items. Each week I go to three supermarkets and a green grocer to get the best deals or reduced items. I grow some of my own veg and cook from scratch all the time.

Yet, often what I cook is inedible and gets binned because despite plenty of practice I am a rubbish/erratic cook. Burnt, undercooked, bad substitutions, missing ingredients, poor quality ingredients, dry, fatty, salty, whatever ... Many of my efforts waste our money. It is less expensive and stressful to have processed fish and chips, or frozen meat pie, or whatever.

I am thoroughly sick of sneering lectures from people who do not get that everyone is not like them, in terms of abilities. Or how make out it is easy. Not for me, it isn't. And I have tried and tried.

[HoneyDragon]

A bag of potatoes itself is £2-£3. The weather of late has made potatoes very expensive.

If you want cheap potatoes you need to get a massive sack and split it between three families.

[diaimchlo]

Again people stereotyping without having any information. As MrsTedMosey has pointed out the TV could have been bought in better financial times. I also have a large flat screen TV and am benefits, it was a gift from a family member when they upgraded theirs.

I cook from scratch when I am able, which due to mobility issues is not very often. But Sirzy Farmfoods meat?????? have you tried their Beef mince? I can honestly tell you it is like eating cat litter. Whilst some of the cheaper unbranded food is passable the majority is very substandard, you get what you pay for.

[usualsuspect]

Plenty of overweight wealthy people.

Or is it only the poor who get derided for eating unhealthy food?

I mean even Waitrose sells ready meals

[farrowandbawl]

Good point about the transport and the cost of fuel in cooking the food.

It all adds up. Those meters, I think personally, should be outlawed or at the very least, in line with monthly tarriffs.

For transport, yes, I have a bus stop at the end of my road, 2 great food markets and a farmers market (monthly) which to buy food from - but the bus fare was nearly £5, there and back. That's a big chunk out of a £20 budget.

[YouTheCat]

What Seasicksal said.

JO is an arse.

[englishteacher78]

Perhaps part of the issue is the same as on other threads. Those of us with a skill can't understand why others find it hard.
I know I'm guilty of it as I thoroughly enjoy cooking, baking etc. And I can make tasty meals cheaply (had no freezer while living on my own and learnt to use soya mince and chunks) for one.
I was fortunate to have a dad who taught me to cook and a good Home Ec teacher. Also an ex's mum was vegetarian and taught me some excellent little tricks for great vegetarian cooking.
I actually don't mind JO. His Ministry of Food idea was actually probably a good solution, actually teaching people to cook simple, cheap meals.

[Morloth]

Jamie Oliver for example is a twat.

I would like to punch him (and Bono) in his big stupid smug face.

There is just something about that man that riles me.

[mrspremise]

Better food education and tackling things like budgeting skills in schools is a key issue, I feel. I cook from scratch every day (though I'm not above having the odd convenience ingredient around the place) but I was lucky enough to have parents who were had the time and were able to teach me a basic grounding in food and cooking from a young age. Not everyone is or can. Jamie Oliver has hugely gone down in my estimations over the last few years; he's lost touch and become a sanctimonious twat.

[SeaSickSal]

LadyBarlow what makes me so angry about Jamie (and you to be honest) is that you're writing off an entire generation, or in Jamie's case 'the poor' by saying that they are not actually poor but merely profligate and lazy.

I'm sure there are some people at your school who have a weekly manicure and iPhones. I'm sure Jamie has met some people who had expensive TVs in their homes and fed their children crap. That doesn't mean that 'the poor' in general do it.

In fact at least two of them are far more indicative that 'the poor' are far more likely to he heavily targeted by the kind of high interest vultures who flog this kind of stuff to the poor with a hard sell.

[lljkk]

You can still buy old CRT TVs 2nd hand for about £15. Not that a TV is an essential, anyway. So it does say a lot about priorities.