Foodbanks! Did I just hear Julia Hartley Brewer correctly?

[fUNNYfACE36]

Am I being unreasonable to be disgusted by Julia Hartley Brewer's comment this morning, tha t in the course of her work she has visited many foodbanks, and the people who use them are not that thin!!
So until you are emaciated you should just not eat?

In fact all of my reply should have been to KnittedCardi

I've no idea who this woman Is, many people think like her even on mumsnet I've read well they look well fed,

some people have no idea how poverty works how complex it is and they think well they are fat so obviously not "starving," it's infuriating !

It’s down to education isn’t it? We all know carrots/tinned tomatoes/ frozen veg/jacket potatoes/value pasta/rice etc is cheaper and healthier than chicken nuggets and chips/ready made pizza but some people don’t know how to cook. When my kids had cookery lessons at school they made things like cakes and pizza - junk, not how to make a decent nutritious meal for pennies. This is the problem I think.

It isn't always about "good food choices "pizza and cake isn't junk food it's just food.

It is entirely possible to eat a low cost nutritious diet if you have the skills to do it and the will power to learn. But it's much easier to shout down anyone suggesting nutrition education and cooking skills are important and should be imparted to those who don't have them.

You are assuming that everybody using a foodbank has the means to actually cook healthy meals. Never been in emergency accommodation have you? My "kitchen" was a microwave, no fridge or freezer to store fresh food at all.

It is junk if that’s all you are eating.

But who says that Is all people are eating? I think demonising food is wrong having a cake or a biscuits and chips as part of balanced diet doesn't make ",you," fat and unhealthy.

JHB didn't suggest nutrition education or anything else. She just wanted to make a dig at poor people and appeal to the thick cunts who consider her "clever".

Ah I've had a look to see who she is, I know who she is but I didn't know her name. She is a raging snob who looks down her nose at everything and this obviously includes fat people !

I didn’t hear what she said exactly but it is somewhat… ironic if somebody claiming to have no money for food, or claims not to eat enough, is overweight. Nobody who is overweight ‘isn’t eating enough’. They’re eating the wrong food, or too much of it. Britain as a nation is very overweight, food has been too cheap for too long - if we have to inspect what we put in our trolleys a little more closely, and cut down on waste, I’m all for it.

It’s depressing but I believe there is a vast cross section of society that you could ‘educate’ until the cows came home, but they would still eat rubbish and make excuses.

Am I being unreasonable to be disgusted by Julia Hartley Brewer's comment

I didn't need to read any further than this. Everything that comes out of her mouth is disgusting.

I agree @Moonicorn but hope you have your hard hat on?

@Whiteroomjoy

most overweight people I know constantly, and I mean constantly, think about calorie intake const, they berate themselves for a single biscuit, they have done more days restricting calories and exerting huge self control than most normal weight people ever have.

I'm sorry but this is absolute arse. Speaking as a person with a long history of eating disorders, who has spent years living with various overweight people, they don't spend 1/1000th of the time thinking about calories than I do, or other skinny people.

Most of the overweight people I've lived with (including but not limited to immediate family members, husband/boyfriends, flatmates, colleagues) will eat a packet of biscuits, nuts, cheese, bread, crisps, etc without thinking twice about it. Hardly 'berating themselves for a single biscuit'. I can't count how many times I've been the only person in meetings who doesn't take a biscuit (or three) from the plate when it's passed round. Most people exert very little, if any, self-control.

Just because you may think about yourself this way doesn't mean it applies to all other overweight people.

It’s always on, I’m not very popular on here

I lost my job while pregnant in 2018. I had to rely on a church foodbank, and then covid happened and I had to carry on doing so.
I'm a trained cook. I've cooked for the BBC. I've cooked in boutique hotels. I know how to cook.

What I couldn't do was make nutritious low calorie meals out of (average week) two tins of meatballs, a packet of pasta, a fray bentos pie, a Swiss roll or suchlike, plus whatever else which was usually biscuits, cereal and tinned fruit, for me and a toddler. There was never anything fresh. There were no tins that weren't cheap meat or baked beans or peaches. Surplus Easter eggs, leftover Christmas cake, shit.
And I got fat. Couldn't go anywhere with the baby, not even the park.
No car so I couldn't carry anything more than what I could push in the pram with the baby back from the one bloody trip to the supermarket.
I tried dieting on that kind of food and there's just not enough nourishment in it to keep you going if you half portions. Because it's shit.

The year after lockdown I got a job and I've just started losing weight because I can afford proper ingredients that I can actually cook with.

No it's not ironic. It is the result of economics and science. Poverty, stress, ill health/disability combined with high costs/lack of availability of fresh food and fuel.

No doubt JHB knows this. But she plays to a low gallery, people who feel better about themselves by sneering at the poor or the overweight or the disabled.

But that’s only because they can’t buy a bag of doughnuts for £1 or a packet of custard creams for 35p.

@TooBigForMyBoots 60% of people are either in poverty or ‘ill’ are they?

@Bamboux I am sorry to hear you have an eating disorder.

If I had £5 to feed me, Dh, 2 kids and 2 cats for two days, I’d not be buying lentils, pesto and Kale, I’d be buying cheap sausages, baked beans, white potatoes, cheap white bread, jam, cheap frozen nuggets and white pasta and cheap jarred sauce.

Speaks for itself. Full of sugar and carbs.

We are discussing JHB's comments on overweight foodbank users. That's not 60% of anything.

Compare a British supermarket to a Spanish one. Just look at the cheap junk that fills ours! Now it’s rebalancing back to European prices, it feels like we’re being ‘starved’ when actually it’s been too cheap and plentiful for far too long.

I don’t believe it’s about ‘food education’. As I said before, people just like yummy unhealthy food. I do 🤷🏼‍♀️ And a lot of people will always choose it over healthier, less gratifying food. You can’t blame the government for that, or big corporations, or mental health. It’s always a case of self discipline but it just lacks now as everyone is made to feel nothing is their fault - blame the Tories, blame the NHS, or your glands

I was referring to overweight people.

But surely this is a life skill that you as a parent would teach them?
So when they are toddlers you make the porridge, but by the time they are 6/7 they will be perfectly capable of making it themselves in the microwave.