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?

This. See also: charities are scammers who spend too much on admin; beggars only spend the money on drugs; immigrants in boats are all young men.

Helps people who are arseholes to think they aren't arseholes. I have more respect for people who are just self-serving and say that.

Indeed. Including those smug “experts” that think “ if only the poor people could cook, no one would be hungry” 🙄

Oh come on! The healthy food is also there as well, it’s choice. If the government legislated to clear the aisles of biscuits and junk, there would be pandemonium and Mumsnetters would be foaming at the mouth to criticise their ‘controlling’ new policy, ‘showing they think the public are like children and should have their pleasures and choices stripped away’. And you know it!

Bloody hell. It's perfectly possible to see that poverty makes people buy and eat the wrong sort of food and education would help SOME of those people without being a right wing cunt

If you are living on the bread line you may not have access to fresh fruit and vegetables within walking distance of your house, you are more likely to live close to a fried chicken shop

Have you seen the prices of those chicken shops? I bought my teens a couple of meals from one the other day and it was near on £20, so presumably around £30/40 for a family - that would pay for decent nutritious home cooked food for a few days.

I agree with @MyOldFriendTime Fish and chips is now £20 for two people here (average town). I don’t buy that ‘fast food is cheaper’.

Insensitive dickhead.

No but a 75p pack of fish fingers in Morrisons is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying fresh fish.

Of course it is. And if you're a person who supports initiatives that help with this, I'm not talking about you.

But there are lots of people who say things like this just to assuage their guilt at doing nothing.

I'm involved in a project at the moment giving out seeds, soil, pots etc. to people experiencing poverty. Growing herbs and vegetables to have fresh food to eat, encourage reluctant children, support diversity in food choices. I'm even trying to write a online book with recipes linked to the available seeds. I know that it's important. But doing nothing because 'people are fat and don't need it' isn't the same as doing things to help with choices. Support different choices if people are willing and able to make them.

And there are very many people abusing the system much higher up the chain, look at the MPs who have second jobs, huge expenses claims, the ones who are frequently absent from the HoC. sadly these are the people who pontificate about how the rest of us should live

Fish fingers aren’t an unhealthy food. I wouldn’t serve them up several times a week, but once or twice a week with baked beans and green veg they’re fine for kids.

Of course it is. And if you're a person who supports initiatives that help with this, I'm not talking about you

Well I don't vote Tory, if that helps.

Their deceit doesn’t make effectively stealing from a food bank okay, does it?

Its typical 'Punch down' rhetoric - dont get angry at the billions linign the Tories from all their dodgy deals, the money they waste on absolute shit but yes...lets have a go at people using foodbanks, the fat fuckers!

@Moonicorn I agree, but if you're skint you can't necessarily afford to cook the fish fingers in the oven and the veg on the hob and do that for various meals every day.

It's more than just the cost of the food itself.

I didn't have fast food, let alone fried chicken from a fried chicken shop until I was an adult earning my own money, it was simply out of our price range

It really does.

No, it’s that they’re completely separate issues. Shall we just stop prosecuting civilian theft and fraud because the MPs did it? What has their deceit got to do with obesity?

I volunteer at my local food bank. I collect, sort, pack and distribute the food.
I regularly find, at 2pm on Sat, after we’ve closed, tins of veg, lentils, chickpeas and soup discarded next to the dustbin at the end of the lane.
It’s frustrating. Some people do it because they cruise several of the local food banks and cherry pick the ‘best’ items, chucking the rest. But some do it because they simply don’t know what to do with these items or how to make them in to a meal. We’ve even made simple recipe cards (cook and non cook) but it hasn’t helped.
It’s true to say that poverty doesn’t mean you have to eat unhealthily, but it’s unhelpful to refer to third world countries. They simply don’t have the options that we have here.
Here you need not only the skill but also the real desire to make the effort to avoid the cheap, unhealthy stuff. And when you have chicken shops on every street and ads showing juicy burgers and fries and kids who see these and want them, the likelihood of rustling up a healthy meal of brown rice and lentils is pretty remote.
So it’s possible. Just as it’s possible to jog on the spot or do 500 steps on a box in the living room to stay warm. But with all the crap that comes with being poor and tired and stressed, making these healthy choices is hard. Not impossible, but hard.

Have you ever been in the flat of someone who is desperately struggling to the point they can't afford food? Can you try to imagine what their kitchen and cooking conditions might be like?

I don’t « know it » actually. Where in my post did I say the government should completely ban the sale of biscuits and sweets in supermarkets? You are being disingenuously extreme for the sake of your argument. My point is that there is a place for light-handed regulation that gives people not a slap but a nudge in the right direction and makes it easier to eat healthily within their immediate environment.

People are always sold the lie in the UK tha regulation like we see in the uk is completely undesirable but it keeps water standards clean, it guarantees a decent price to the farmers selling wheat and dairy products, it caps the price on certain staple foods too for the consumer. It also sets a certain standard for food safety.

Legislation can also be gently applied to stop fried chicken shops setting up within a certain distance of schools, and determines what pupils eat for their school lunch. And where supermarkets and leisure centres are allowed or not allowed to be built.

There are so many reasons that explain the reasons for our current obesity crisis and light legislation, wisely applied, can make an enormous difference by curbing the wildest excesses of consumerism.

The Doncaster Free Press from over 2 years ago has spoken to someone with (unreported) anecdotal evidence? Well, you have certainly convinced me.

JHB will say anything controversial to get a reaction. It’s best to roll your eyes and not to give her the attention she so desperately seeks.

@EuphoriaEuphorbia29 you said:

If…there was a cap on the percentage of confectionary and ready meals they were allowed to sell

How else was I supposed to interpret that? I assumed you meant a fairly substantial cap for it to have any effect.

Then what? It wouldn’t make what remained any cheaper, or quicker to make.

I simply think we’ve become gluttonous as a nation and entitled to a lifestyle that is frankly untenable as the ‘baseline’. I can think of a lot of quick and healthy meals for £1 a head for a family of 4, but upon being presented with them they would be deemed ‘not tasty enough’ or the portions ‘too small’ even though they were the recommended size.

I'm involved in a different but similar project, and I think the thing that people like @Moonicorn seem unable to grasp is that with many people living in very difficult circumstances, you're almost starting from the ground up. Many of people finding themselves in desperate circumstances have been raised in generations of neglect, poverty, abuse, hopelessness and lack much of the information and many of the basic skills we take for granted.