To get fed up with people with people like Jamie Oliver trying to coerce poor people via taxation.

[Booyaka]

I absolutely loathe Jamie Oliver anyway, but this crusade of his over sugar is driving me mad. I think something possibly needs to be done about sugar, but I don't think this is the way to do it. He did make a suggestion about prominently labelling total number of teaspoons of sugar in a product, which seemed quite sensible. But mainly he was pushing the tax angle.

Jamie Oliver's entire schtick seems to be that poor people can't be trusted to make the right decisions so they should instead be priced out to force them to make the decisions that he and his ilk believe that they should be making.

It bloody annoys me that they seem to think if you are wealthy and can afford them anyway you can be trusted to make the right decision anyway, but if you're poor you need to be coerced, and that coercion, of something as basic as what you eat and drink, is fine as long as you are poor. He did very much concentrate on handwringing about 'the deprived' too and how this tax would seemingly save them from themselves.

Apparently 1/3 of the products he sell in his restaurants are high sugar anyway, but he probably doesn't mind that, because he prices his tat so highly only middle class people can afford it and they're sensible enough to be trusted with sugar unlike the proles.

He probably doesn't realise, but a lot of people can't afford to take their kids to Tuscany or the Caribbean, Cornwall or even Skeg-bloody-ness. They can't buy their kids a lot of toys or give them days out. Is it really fair to give these people a financial kicking for giving their kids one of the few treats they can afford? Especially when many of them do so sensibly and in moderation.

I know that social housing you're basically told you will be given a loan towards your cooking facilities when you move in if you've been homeless. If that's the case (and it almost always is if you get a council flat these days) you're probably on benefits and it will mean your benefits will be docked accordingly. Which is fair enough except....you have to get it from their approved supplier. Which is normally a company which sells reconditioned goods for in excess of the price which would have been charged for them when new. There is one near me, and just as an example, they sell a reconditioned, old, worn and scruffy Cookworks oven which costs about £50 new for £150. They sell Ikea coffee tables which cost £9 in Ikea for £30.

They're shit quality and when they (inevitably) break down you have to get another loan against your benefits which will reduce the small amount of money you're getting even further.

There's an estate near me which was refurbished in 2005 which hadn't been properly refurbished since the 50s and they still had larders with cold bricks which froze the tiny flats up.

So basically making money out of poorer people.

Oh yes. The rich get the freebies and the goody bags and the poor get ripped off. Always the way.

Jamie Oliver was the marketing face behind Tate & Lyle's adverts only a few years ago - yes the largest sugar refiner- and espoused the benefits and goodness of sugar. All that information appears to have been expunged from the internet.

Oh no,NorwegianSkies here it is.

I forgot about that. Thanks.

He's a fucking hypocrite.

Boo, that's shocking about the loans & suppliers!

God knows why I keep being shocked by further evidence of vicious profiteering off the poorest people. It reminds me of the 'bonded stores' mine & factory owners used to operate. Miners were paid in tokens that could only be spent at the local shop, which the mine owned - and charged three times the usual prices.

"75g Tate & Lyle Fairtrade Light Brown soft sugar
3 rounded tbsp Lyle's Golden Syrup"

Lol.

This Jamie recipe [[http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/member-recipes/recipe-detail/3102/#ff0qXRckZrzOeTIv.97 for treacle toffee] is so full of nutritious Tate & Lyle goodness that there's hardly room for anything else.

Except butter.

#buttercunt

This Jamie recipe for treacle toffee is so full of nutritious Tate & Lyle goodness that there's hardly room for anything else.

Except butter.

#buttercunt

Actually, how the fuck do you get a rounded tablespoon of golden syrup? It runs off, dunnit. Looks like JO never even read the damn recipe, just put the brand names in.

Bloody hell!!!

If I couldn't afford heating you can bet I'd be snuggled up with a Mars bar, not cooking a bowl of lentils.

Don't panic Helena! Poor people can't afford the book and even if they could they probably can't read! Jamie obviously researches the price levels for his books to ensure that no poor people can get their hands on something which might prove lethal in the hands of anybody not in the higher tax bracket.

God, he's worse than I thought. And I already thought he was a cunt.

Save With Jamie's brisket of beef (first episode) was lovely.

I stole the accompanying herbs from a local park as advised, put it in my oven and was released from custody around about the time it was ready to eat!

Sadly I had no heating or electricity for following week, but it's nice that a white male multi-millionaire is trying to help feckless people like me.

Charity.

"Actually, how the fuck do you get a rounded tablespoon of golden syrup? It runs off, dunnit. Looks like JO never even read the damn recipe, just put the brand names in."

Where do you live? Saudi Arabia?

My golden syrup is cold and slow moving and can definitely be rounded on a spoon.

Home made toffee and fudge is fucking lovely.

Making and giving your kids a bit of fudge every now and again isn't a problem and he's not a hypocrite.

The average consumption of fizzy drinks in the UK is four and a half itres per person per week.

That's the fucking problem.

Not a little, delicious piece of home made toffee.

Would you merrymouse? I've often had no heating and it doesn't stop me from wanting to eat proper meals.

Very few of us have much of a chance to resist the power of the big food companies. Sugar is profitable. Foods are laboratory tested to ensure maximum consumption without fullness, packaging is redesigned to normalise greater ease of access and greater consumption in a single sitting. Confectionary is cynically labelled as "for sharing" when the food companies know that the vast majority of consumers will purchase for individual consumption and do so in one sitting. Retailers position the long-shelf-life discounted baked goods and confectionary in areas of maximum footfall and in the line of sight when loading food onto a checkout or paying.

There's huge funding into dietary research foundations which purport to be independent but are funded by food multinationals. There's a huge amount of funding and research into advertising, both through conventional routes and unregulated routed such as peer marketing or promotional games.

Given what is effectively a war on UK consumers from major food multinationals, I can't believe that more of out population aren't obese.

And I agree with Jamie Oliver. It's not a tax on poor people but a simple defensive measure that can be implemented by Government to prevent the actions of the food multinationals from bringing down the health service and causing thousands of premature deaths.

I stole the accompanying herbs from a local park as advised

That rings a bell charity. Didn't the same poster talk about poor people being able to scrounge Nature's bounteous harvest from roadside brambles?

Limited period, I think that was one of Jamies suggestions. Not sure what herbs grow in parks though.
As for bramble picking, everyone used to do that when I was a kid and we lived in a town.

Oh come on This is NOT about the NHS. If it was what i posted about poor housing would be taken just as seriously on here. Because you are basically saying its ok for big corporations to cost the NHS but not those pesky poor people.

And with regards to Booyaka posting about how homeless/poorer people have to get a more expensive cooker from an approved supplier.....that doesnt help either.

And i would just like to point out that ive seen plenty of complaining about the same principle on here when a school makes MNers buy school uniform from an approved supplier. There are threads on this that would stretch to the moon and back.

Go bramble picking in our public gardens and you are likely to get arrested.

minifingerz What is the definition of hypocrite in your dictionary?

I'd say accepting money to enthusiastically promote a company whose main, if not only product, is sugar and then later condemning sugar without breathing a dickie bird would be mine.

Limited JO himself told us about the herbs. Personally I am sun-drying tomatoes amongst the disused needles in my local green space.

But there was a "why on earth are people short of money when there are blackberries for the picking" thread on AIBU not long after.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1845544-to-wonder-why-there-are-blackberries-going-bad-whilst-people-complain-that-they-dont-have-enough-money-to-feed-their-family-healthy-food