Tory MP blames food bank use on people not knowing how to cook or budge

Robin49

A calorie is a calorie how ever you consume it, eat too many calories and don't do any exercise and surprise surprise you might wake up one morning and find yourself fat.

Couldn’t agree more Maudi

We are talking about poverty aren’t we?

The issues are very different

A calorie is a calorie how ever you consume it, eat too many calories and don't do any exercise and surprise surprise you might wake up one morning and find yourself fat.

Couldn’t agree more Maudi

growstuff

*why not spend it talking about nutrition instead*

Because pupils wouldn't listen and, even if they did, would forget it by the time the skills were needed.

PS. What are "cutting skills"?

I don’t think that is true. I opted to do domestic science to O level amongst other more academic O levels, and I have never forgotten a huge amount, like nutrition, health safety, economy and of course cooking. Not just cooking but why different foods reacted under heat (chemistry really) how to conserve foods and ensure vitamins etc were kept at the optimum level.

We also learned how to wash clothing and linen and at what temperature to ensure the bacteria, dust mites etc were eliminated.

It was a comprehensive and thorough course which has stood me in good stead throughout my life.

Whatever else people learn what they will always need is the knowledge that keeps them healthy.

... if MPs learned how to budget and cook from scratch - maybe they wouldn't need us to subsidise their food bill at work...

Not original. I saw this on Facebook.

11:50DaisyAnne

A calorie is a calorie how ever you consume it, eat too many calories and don't do any exercise and surprise surprise you might wake up one morning and find yourself fat. No excuse to be fat or call other posters names because they don't agree with you. Perhaps getting out into the real world instead of spending all day on GN and Google might be an eye opener ?

Chopping skills are learning to chop a cabbage, or carrot, or onion - not with a particular aim in mind, which is what I thought was pointless. They came home with a chopped vegetable that had been carried around all day, so was difficult to use, and they couldn't see the point.

If children aren't going to listen and would forget everything, what's the point of teaching them anything at all?

why not spend it talking about nutrition instead

Because pupils wouldn't listen and, even if they did, would forget it by the time the skills were needed.

PS. What are "cutting skills"?

The fact that some mothers, including my own, worked in the 1950s does not invalidate the fact that most women didn't. In 1951 80%of married women did not work [[www.historytoday.com/history-matters/rise-working-wife ]]

My mum worked part time from when I started school and full time when I was seven. She somehow managed to cook a lunch until I went to grammar school at 11. She did do jobs that enabled her to be out and about. She was a brilliant sales rep and probably I think one of the first women to do it.

My Mum was a great Mum but she worked part-time, so she did read the job description but adapted it.

Callistemon21

^In the 1950s, most women did not work outside the home sp had the time to walk children to and from school. It was in their job description.^
I don't think my Mum read the job description.

Neither did my mum (or my gran for that matter).

In the 1950s, most women did not work outside the home sp had the time to walk children to and from school. It was in their job description.
I don't think my Mum read the job description.

Baggs

^In the 1950s, most women did not work outside the home sp had the time to walk children to and from school. It was in their job description.^

In the 1950s most kids walked to school on their own, or with other kids who lived near them.

I walked to school from the age of 5 or 6 (infant school wasn't far away).
Mum used to wave to me through the cloakroom window on her way to work.

Blondiescot

Jack explains it better than anyone:
cookingonabootstrap.com/2022/05/12/whats-the-difference-between-jack-monroe-suggesting-budget-recipes-and-a-tory-mp/

That's quite a forceful, and harrowing, read.

She's done the very thing that these mealy-mouthed politicians bang on about. She's learned to budget, and cook on a shoestring. And anyone with a computer can access her recipes.

... yet she receives rape and death threats, regularly (I'm not suggesting it's the pompous, patronising politicians doing this, I'm sure they're not).

She's outspoken about Tory ideology - but no more so than the Right Wing are outspoken about the Left.

Who are these people who hate her so much. Katie Hopkins for one. Hated her so much she tried to damage her reputation. And lost. Heavily.

I'm full of admiration for Jack. She fights depression and the stigma still applied to those with autism. She won't give in to her detractors. And she really does help those who need to know how to shop and budget for their food.

If I needed to know how to budget and cook from scratch... I'd listen to her, not these Tory MPs who keep being wheeled in to tell the poor that the reasons for their poverty are basically all their own fault...

I didn't say that young people can't cook - mine both do, but they didn't learn at school. Neither did I for that matter, but that matters less when you can afford to buy things that are easy to cook, or to learn by buying parts of the meal ready made.

People who are on very tight budgets are being expected to cook, to budget and to understand nutrition when nobody has taught them, and in many cases they are doing precarious jobs for very little money. If a school can spend an hour a week teaching cutting skills, why not spend it talking about nutrition instead, or about budgeting? I just get sick of hearing that people (usually young people) can't cook, or don't bother to cook, and that this is because they are lazy. If nobody has shown them how to do it, how are they supposed to know?

The problem, IMO, is not that at all - it is that people are not paid enough, rents are too high, and the safety net that used to be there has far too many holes.

My kids - aged 33 to 45- all cook better than me. To be fair, that's not too difficult ?.
None of them did food technology at school.

Jack explains it better than anyone:
cookingonabootstrap.com/2022/05/12/whats-the-difference-between-jack-monroe-suggesting-budget-recipes-and-a-tory-mp/

In the 1950s, most women did not work outside the home sp had the time to walk children to and from school. It was in their job description.

In the 1950s most kids walked to school on their own, or with other kids who lived near them.

Almost everyone I know under 30 can cook. Some very well

I do wonder on what basis people make these sweeping statements about whole generations. There are people who cannot cook or cook very badly in every generation.

Does anyone remember the tv seris 'Butterflies' with Wendy Craig as a dentists (geoffrey Palmer) who couldn't cook? This lack of culinary skills rang a bell with many people back in the 1980s

As I've said, a lot of people who consider themselves as pretty clued up on nutrician actually have no more idea than anyone else.
It's something that is learned from necessity, I think.

You can learn cooking skills from you tube videos now. In fact there isn't much you can't learn from there.

Sorry, but I really disagree that schools should have to teach budgeting and cooking. Most pupils will have forgotten what they've been taught by the time they come to use any skills they learn. I also disagree that young people can't cook. Cooking and budgeting are life skills which I think most people learn when they need them as they go along.

Planning, budgeting, and shopping are all important when it comes to economising on food, and not all of those is possible when you are working full-time (or worse, running between two or more jobs that pay by the hour). Getting supermarket bargains relies on being free at certain times of day, and it is very often the poorer areas that have no access to cheap markets selling off fruit and veg at the end of the day (assuming that you are free then to buy them at that time).

I don't think you can make a decent meal for anything like 30p; but I can get several meals out of a chicken, and know how to bulk things out with pulses and grains. If I had to, I could plan for a week, making sure that what I had left from Monday would be used up on Tuesday, and so on.

I think that children should be taught this sort of thing at school. It would be good for them later in life and they would learn or consolidate other skills along the way (eg arithmetic, proportions/fractions, creative thinking and so on). Obviously the whole ethos of the National Curriculum would have to change to accommodate it, but it would be great if they could do it for real - plan a few meals, budget for them, shop for the ingredients, cook them and show how they would use the leftovers for the rest of the week. They could do it in groups, to allow for BOGOFs etc, and learn co-operation at the same time.

My children were taught separate things like 'chopping skills', for an hour a week. These weren't much use really (they would have picked them up along the way anyway, as I was a firm believer in collective responsibility for chores), and meant that they came home with a bag of sweaty chopped cabbage or something, that parents had to think of a way to use. I don't think they ever brought back a whole edible dish, other than a traybake of Krispie cakes or similar. They were probably typical of their generation (born in the early 90's), and it's not fair to blame young people for not being able to do what no-one has taught them to do, any more than it's fair to blame older people for not being able to operate the latest technology or find their way around social media.

No, he really did mean 30p a day. He's made a video about it

Wow, growstuff Unbelievable.

growstuff i am sorry i did not make myself clear. I meant people migh have fridges, but every scrap of food that was in it has been eaten so there is nothing left in the veg basket to make into bottom of the fridge soup.