to listen to Jamie Oliver on Radio 4 and want to throw things...........

[catinabox]

He's not really doing himself any favours is he?

[catinabox]

I''d love to see a TV documentary where JO goes to a foodbank and sees if he can knock up a weeks worth of food with exactly what he gets AND with two quid left on the electric.

I'd like to see him have cooking lessons from people who don't have the resources to buy beef brisket. I'd like him to spend a week in JaCK Monroe's life.

THAT I would respect.

One group of people that really struggle with food poverty are people leaving foster care and children's homes. Perhaps JO could spend a week with them and find out how they manage to eat when many have had no tangible support to learn basic cooking on a budget, have no mum and dad to go home to for sunday lunch and a bit of extra shopping out the fridge.

How on earth JO can believe he knows anything about cooking on a budget is beyond me. It's actually laughable.

My favourite staple budget recipes are this.

Cheap pasta.
tin tomatoes
onion

Baked Beans
Jacket potato (not a 'big' baker, just standard spud, two if small.
(Microwave only as it is too expensive to oven cook the spud)

With cheese and black pepper,garlic it is food of the gods!.

I would challenge him to get out there and see what it's really like....

[Pimpf]

As I've said all I can go on is what I've heard him saying and I've not heard him talk about shampoo or other necessities. I've heard him taking about the so called poor who obviously have the funds but choose to spend it on crap food.

You are not scum and I don't believe he means you In What he has said

[catinabox]

His way might be a bit cackhanded but you can't have a go at him for wanting to try

Yes you can pimf He has a huge platform and has a responsibility to inform himself. If he really wanted to try he would be doing some of the things i have suggested above instead of assuming he knows best.

By doing what he's done and making the comments he has, he has made it o.k for others , (as we have seen on this thread) to jump on the bandwagon and make similar discriminatory comments and judgements. It's not o.k.

[Pimpf]

Have to do get off mn for a while now but will come back to this.

Cat yes that would be interesting but I still don't think that that is the kind of family he was referring to. But I will have another read/ listen to what he said to make sure I'm not missing something.

[catinabox]

Cat yes that would be interesting but I still don't think that that is the kind of family he was referring to

But that's just it Pimpf does he even know who he's referring to, does anyone? Does it matter? Anyone on benefits with a iphone/ TV who has struggled to budget for food and been to the chippy a few times is going to feel like absolute shite. It's not fair.

I'm being a bit flippant but that is the bottom line for me.

[grumpyoldbat]

People like JO spout rhetoric that make it clear they regard people like scum. I've been called scum often enough to know that I am. You're right he didn't specifically mention shampoo but him and the supportive comments that came after went on and on about spending on non-food, looking down on us doing so that is how I now feel guilty for spending money on hygiene products.

[sillyoldfool]

I don't understand why JO has to make it about 'poor' people, or people that claim they are. There are just as many middle income and rich people who can't cook and feed their children rubbish. Why is it ok for someone to plead time poverty as an excuse without having their daily routine picked apart, but it's ok to pick apart someone who claims financial poverty's finances?
I feel very strongly that you have to trust that people are doing their best with what they have. If they are struggling then they need unpatronising, non-judgemental help.

[southeastdweller]

pimp You may be interested to read the full Radio Times article with Jamie that started all this:

www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-09-02/jamie-oliver-and-martin-lewis-on-eating-well-and-spending-less---video

[mignonette]

Still get the rage at JO's supermarket bashing and of the people using them when -

1. He made millions by endorsing Sainsbury's;
   
2. He makes millions by selling his own range of pre packaged high salt/sugar foods in supermarkets
   
3. He slags off people using pre packaged supermarket food.
   
   Hypocritical, nasty idiot.

[ubik]

There's also psychological research into the 'cognitive load' of poverty - that day-to-day living takes up so many cognitive processes - imagine coping with stress, anxiety, depression as well as battling through the Kafkaesque benefits system - that is very hard to start thinking about ways to escape the hole you find yourself in. I should think that weighing up the cost of balsamic vinegar is probably one of the things which is too much to think about...

"Put another way, the condition of poverty imposed a mental burden akin to losing 13 IQ points, or comparable to the cognitive difference that?s been observed between chronic alcoholics and normal adults."

here

[grumpyoldbat]

That's just it silver it's the not knowing when or even if it's ever going to end. Even if you're lucky enough to start to scramble back up again there's constant of it all going horribly wrong and you'll have to start at the bottom all over again.

[BoffinMum]

I hadn't read the article previously. That is one deluded sleb in that Radio Times article. Shoulder of pork/Brisket of beef cooked long and slow?? Freeze offcuts of cheese? Freeze fresh herbs? What planet is he on? And food comes well after childcare and fuel/commuting costs for about half the working population, I imagine. FFS.

[BelleEtLaBaby]

He's just clueless, isn't he. I thought that about the herbs - top money saving tip is 4-hour cooked pork and freezing 'leftover' fresh herbs? And yes: mortgage, childcare for those of us who are not millionaires and can't afford one parent to bring up our children at home, other bills and then food. I spend about £200 a month on food and three times that on childcare. When I go back to work after this pregnancy I will work full time with two in childcare and bring home about £150 a month as a result of mad childcare costs. And I'm a teacher so I don't make NMW and I am damn sure freezing a bit of cheese won't dent that much. Who throws away edible cheese ends anyway? He's an idiot and the more I read the less I like him.

[BelleEtLaBaby]

I've just read that back and realised it sounded like a jab at sahm's - it absolutely wasn't, in any way. I am referring to Jamie specifically who is a millionaire and whose wife doesn't work. I just wanted to make that clear as it sounds a bit general and I didn't mean it to.

[grumpyoldbat]

I read it as a meal plan that suits a SAHp wouldn't necessarily suit a household without a SAHP, not an attack :)

[Darkesteyes]

southeastdwellerFri 06-Sep-13 07:26:47


I get what pimp and Retro are saying. There are people struggling and who have food cupboards and fridges yet it's beyond them to keep STAPLES in there and prefer to feed their kids crap, and then there's people who do prefer to spend money on gadgets rather than give their kids good food. I think people have the brains to realise that there's other people who're in poverty for whom those CHOICES are luxuries





You are having a go at both groups of people here You are saying that neither group is "deserving" (note inverted commas. ) Then in the next breath you are saying that the public are more compassionate but your earlier paragraph demonstrates the complete opposite And the really worrying thing is you just cant see it.
South your post here has to be the most contradictory post ive seen on mumsnet.

[BoffinMum]

My only view of his wife was when they were on some hagiography of a TV programme filming them all at home and she was crying in a rather fake way (I thought) for the benefit of the cameras about something, garnering a sympathy vote. Reminded me of the Geri Halliwell hagiography where they lovingly filmed the Barbie house her estranged dad had bought her, after filming her reading a handwritten letter from Prince Charles. I think that sort of thing is ridiculously gushing and slebby.

[Darkesteyes]

catinabox your post about foster care has reminded me of Jenni Fagan There is also an interview with her in this months Marie Claire.

www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/books/jenni-fagan-on-life-in-care-and-her-new-novel-1-2896052

[mignonette]

Yes it is beyond me, this public appetite for relatives of the famous to be known to us also. Why oh why?

[grumpyoldbat]

I don't think it's fair to attack his wife. Unless she starts publicly slagging people off and therefore being guilty herself she shouldn't be attacked for her husband's nastiness.

[mignonette]

I'm not attacking her, more our ridiculous society whereby the spouses/children of the famous are seen as of any interest.

But Jools has kind of invited some scrutiny because I doubt that book deal or Mothercare clothing deal would have existed without her famous husband. Just saying.

[Darkesteyes]

Agree grumpy.

[Darkesteyes]

mignon its all part of the same celebrity culture which is a distraction from the real issues. Its a sort of propaganda all on its own.