Vocal Voices

I was watching the women's football, but at half time I switched to the Great British Budget Menu on BBC1.

What a load of patronising pap!

Some sleb cooks attempting to cook on the budgets of some carefully chosen 'victims' of nutrition depression. Give me bloody strength! The idiots did not know how to shop or cook. It even amazed the cooks that buying fresh stuff and cooking it at home was cheaper than buying processed pap...... and that it was more nutritious!

Except for a very, very small minority, foodbanks are not needed. The food is there, it is not that expensive, but the buyers need to know where to get it and what to do with it. We need to stop all this sympathy and get hard with these people.

Cooking a simple and nutritious meal is a doddle - there is little skill required. Having a menu of such meals is also a doddle. They do not require expensive fresh herbs and spices - dried will do. They do not need sea salt, fresh mountain dew or organic flower petals kissed by Angels to make them taste nice. And they do not need a professional cook looking over one's shoulder to tell one how to go about things.

I am seething..... can you tell?

Some people just don't have a clue........

I do think you are being a bit hard on them WM. Not everyone is brought up being taught how to cook and how to shop economically.

Rodo wrote: Not everyone is brought up being taught how to cook and how to shop economically.

I agree, Rodo, more's the pity, because years ago people were brought up that way. I didn't see the programme but I don't like Richard Corrigan at all. I regularly get really annoyed by people who say it's too expensive to cook from fresh when it isn't at all.

WM try not to hyperventilate, but have you seen this latest cr*p??

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... -Duck.html

I think Hester Blumenthal is round the twist!

Rodo, Osc, you're kidding!

People need to be taught how to shop? They need to be taught how to fry a chopped onion and add some mince? They need to be taught how to chop potatoes, carrots and cabbage and boil them? They need to be taught how to put the lot on a plate.

I suppose they can't read a cook book or weigh out the quantities of ingredients either, such is their education.

No wonder we are in a mess! If things have got that bad what a bloody state we have got ourselves in.

Yes WM, they do need to be taught/shown how to cook, and how to shop.

Not everyone is blessed with your healthy IQ. I've several times stood at the veg dept in Tesco giving people instructions on what to do with a cabbage. They have no idea, but are happy to learn - where can they do that?

And I don't believe it's just a recent problem, I think it's always been the case that some people with very little money would always have been able to manage to feed their families properly - but plenty of others would not.
I went to school with children who would bring jam sandwiches for their packed lunch (nothing else), or on a school trip would have one sausage roll and a Mars bar in their bag.
I do think there are more and more people who have no clue how to go about cooking the most basic meals though, and I for one would love to show them how.

It isn't a case that they can't cook - it's because they just can't be bothered.

There are so many other things to occupy one's mind today.

Workingman wrote:Rodo, Osc, you're kidding!

People need to be taught how to shop? They need to be taught how to fry a chopped onion and add some mince? They need to be taught how to chop potatoes, carrots and cabbage and boil them? They need to be taught how to put the lot on a plate.

I suppose they can't read a cook book or weigh out the quantities of ingredients either, such is their education

Well I actually think that is the case, WM - the education system has let them down so badly, and there is a certain generation of children growing up now who never see proper meals being cooked from scratch. I didn't do Home Ec in school, but my mother cooked - it's so lovely to see that Miss Osc and her hubby both cook and so Michael will grow up seeing that meals don't come out of a packet. I'm fully convinced that lack of proper home cooking is a major part of the obesity epidemic.

I agree with the others - people do need to be educated.

If you are a child growing up in a family that does not cook (for whatever reason), living on frozen food which just goes from bag to oven/microwave to plate then how do you learn what cooking is. And if all you know is frozen food then you won't know how to prepare and cook an onion or a carrot.

And you know - it can actually be cheaper to live on frozen prepared meals than it is to eat healthy food. When we have a lasagne I make it from scratch - the mince costs me about £3.33 (usually bought from an offer for 3 for £10), plus an onion, a tin of tomatoes, usually a pepper and a courgette, sheets of lasagne, cheese, flour, milk and butter. We would have a salad with it and I would usually make some garlic bread. I would guess that it would cost me around £10 in total to make. I could go into most supermarkets and buy a large ready made lasagne for about £3 and garlic bread for £1. And if I were so inclined to live on ready meals I doubt I would be interested in salad.

S's new friend who comes to us regularly seems to be one of these children that live on processed food as a couple of times when she has stayed she has asked me what things were. When we had lasagne she said that she didn't realise that you could make it from scratch, she thought it was something that you had to buy from the shops. And she was fascinated watching Mick make chips one night - I assume that she had only seen them come out of a packet. I have promised to take her to the allotment next time she is here.

The key to more economical cooking is making things from scratch and forward planning. If you can't cook then you can't do that so grabbing frozen chips, fish fingers and baked beans must be easier.

A few years ago there was a fantastic programme on called Economy Gastronomy where two chefs (yes they were tv cooks but not the high profile ones) went and worked with families who were spending a fortune on take outs and prepared foods to get them cooking from scratch. Most of them seemed to convert but they all commented on how time consuming it was - if you don't like cooking then I'm sure it must seem like a real chore to have to do it. I was shocked by one of the families - they (including their 3 year old) had kebabs at least 3 times a week and the rest of the week it was all processed food. They just didn't buy fresh vegetables.

The most shocking thing I encountered was a few years ago when we were on holiday and we went out to a pub for a meal. A family with children a similar age to us (pre school) was sat next to us and their children started playing with out two. When the food came they were asking me what things were - tomatoes, chicken (that can't be chicken they said - its the wrong shape - I assumed they were talking about chicken nuggets), peppers. They obviously just lived on processed food!!

I don't know whose job it is to educate them but they do need educating - at them moment there is a whole generation growing up that has no idea what healthy eating is. And it is very, very sad.