Rich person tells ppl at foodbank to spend more on organic, small family farm produced food.

[Jdsk]

"National Food Strategy for England"
https://www.nationalfoodstrategy.org
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... or-england

Jonathan

[simonineaston]

The National Food Strategy sounds very interesting. I scimmed through their website last night. There are some great ideas and ambitions described in some of their literature. I hope some of the excellent suggestions can survive the lobbying the very powerful processed food industry can exert.
Quite a good video summarising some of the NFS's findings, from last year's Oxford Farming Conference, here , including reference to 'true cost of food'. If like me you aren't sure who the host, Henry Dimbleby, is you can see his wikipedia entry here .
The book referenced in Dimbleby's address, Linked: How Everything Is Connected... by Albert-László Barabási can be found here .

[Jdsk]

If you liked that how about this:

"Testing Times for UK Food Policy: Nine principles and Tests"
https://foodresearch.org.uk/publication ... and-tests/

Jonathan

[simonineaston]

Cookery at school might help in learning how to use them.

I agree - as someone who's worked with UK primary schools for three decades, I've seen a disasterous combination of reduction in physical exercise & change in dietary intake habits have a nationwide negative affect on hundreds and thousands of kids. Combine that with widespread low levels of practical education on the subjects of cooking, nutrition, home economics and personal fitness & health and it perhaps not suprising that we are what we are... it's very sad - and completely avoidable too!!

[Jdsk]

And what has a Minister chosen to say in an initial response:

"I think you have to be very cautious before putting burdens on members of the public, particularly those on lower incomes. I do think you have to be very careful about going down that route because I don’t want to make life more difficult for people on low incomes."

Jonathan

[simonineaston]

This sort of response from government ministers is utterly nauseating - they are in effect saying, "poor people can get what they're given and lump it - and if it makes them ill and shortens their lives, then they only have themselves to blame..."

[simonineaston]

...and now Piffle has joined in

Boris Johnson has set himself on a likely collision course with the authors of a new national food strategy by effectively ruling out its key recommendation for a £3bn sugar and salt tax to tackle the dominance of junk food.

He is a total wind-bag. Talk of levelling is just empty rhetoric. He doesn't care for anybody and judging by his perceived strength of purpose, not even himself... What a shame.

[axel_knutt]

The report isn't suggesting that individuals buy organic, it's recommending that public bodies should be procuring organic. It doesn't define healthy food as organic either, in fact it doesn't explicitly define healthy food at all. The nearest it gets is a couple of passing references to the Nutrient Profile Score used by the FSA.

Healthier foodstuffs tend to be more expensive, but it's perfectly possible to eat diet that's well below a NPS of 4 (the threshold that the FSA regard as unhealthy) but still costs way below national average.
(My diet has a NPS of -2.2, and costs 39% of average.)

[Oldjohnw]

The report isn't suggesting that individuals buy organic, it's recommending that public bodies should be procuring organic. It doesn't define healthy food as organic either, in fact it doesn't explicitly define healthy food at all. The nearest it gets is a couple of passing references to the Nutrient Profile Score used by the FSA.

Healthier foodstuffs tend to be more expensive, but it's perfectly possible to eat diet that's well below a NPS of 4 (the threshold that the FSA regard as unhealthy) but still costs way below national average.
(My diet has a NPS of -2.2, and costs 39% of average.)

I must say the title of this thread bears little if any resemblance to either the report or the comments by Charles. One assumes it was to stimulate discussion, which it has.

[Tangled Metal]

Just to be clear I wasn't talking about any report I was talking about Charlie boy, BBC and their presentation of CB's long held views on food and organic food, again. Mouthpiece for the soil association perhaps?

Perhaps I missed mention of the report people keep mentioning, I was busy getting out to work so possibly missed it, but the overall feel of the presentation was rich, privileged man going on about saving small family farms by spending more on food with the added organic argument.

First off I do not think heir to the throne gives anyone more importance or relevance when talking about topics affecting everyone. I do wish they'd stop listening to him and presenting his views.

Second, food is such a difficult and important issue. First thing about food is we need to make sure everyone has enough. Right now it's becoming more common to use foodbanks. I don't personally think we should need them because people should always have enough money for the needs of life like water, shelter, food and clothing, but that's another topic. We're where we're at with 2.5 million people being directed to Foodbanks because they can't afford food. Any change that could affect that needs more consideration than simply looking at it from small family farms or organic. Which was what I took from what Charlie boy actually said.

Thirdly, food nutrition and what you eat is linked to wealth and personal circumstances. A poor household has so many more difficulties than a rich one when it comes to affording good food, knowing how to cook it and having access to it. Access to supermarkets on the edges of towns away from deprived areas. Local convenience stores might be only shop ppl can get to easily without bus or taxi money. They're actually a lot more expensive and the veg quality and quantity is usually very poor in more deprived areas. Time. Ppl do not all have time for buying good quality food from butchers, bakers and greengrocers. They mostly only survive in more affluent areas anyway.

Learning to cook healthily? I learnt from my parents, both of them. Nice, middle class household with parents home in reasonable time able to teach me before I got close to leaving home. I know people who are third or more generations away from knowing about good, home cooking. Weight is a big issue in those families as is many of the medical conditions made more likely and worse by lifestyle "choices ". I am not even sure choices is right with many due to circumstances.

All in all without sorting out all these other issues I do not think it right to be lectured on organic, saving small farms and quality of soil like Charlie boy and that BBC report. Interestingly they seemed you drop the Charlie boy bit fairly quickly in that news day.

I guess I do have a problem with the heir to the throne (and the monarchy too I guess), lecturing from above on food / lifestyle matters and the bbc's current quality of editorial decision making.

[Oldjohnw]

He still never told people using food banks to pay more for their food.

And if we don’t look after the soil we have been steadily ruining for over half a century there won’t be anything.

My nearest town is not affluent. It is deprived in many parts. But it has three butcher’s shops. It is what people do here. Obviously, supermarkets sell meat, possibly to the majority. A single chick breast at a butchers shop cost about £4. You can buy a whole chicken for that at the supermarket. But I guess there’s more meat on the single breast than the entire chicken, as well as knowing where it comes from. Perhaps that helps people in deciding where to shop.

I’m not a monarchist, nor do I think Charles should have any particular right to speak. His merit, it seems to me, is that he has something worth saying and he says it quite well. I didn’t feel at all lectured to when he spoke a couple of days ago.I wonder if by the pejorative way you name him you had decided not to listen to what he actually said in the first place. His long held views, once widely derided, have been proven pretty correct and are now widely accepted in the mainstream.

[Tangled Metal]

You're absolutely technically correct. He told everyone to support small farmers, organic food and by consequence pay more for their food. Among them will be people at food banks (who still but food despite using food banks). So technically correct he's not talking just to foodbank users but people in that situation are among those being told.

BTW I grew up eating veg bought from family farmers. I had some very fortunate circumstances that allowed that. I lived in a market gardening area, my I parents had cars to get out to the farm shops, they were brought up with a degree of exposure to home cooking from raw ingredients with an interest in good food that filled in the blanks and the farms were not organic but used a responsible amount of fertiliser, weed and pest killers. Put it this way, some of them ended up supplying booths supermarket which imho outdoes even the most upmarket supermarket chain in terms of quality fruit and veg. That regional supermarket chain certainly seems to rate quality over price. That would be totally impossible for my family now.

[Tangled Metal]

I use that pejorative way about him because of what he said. I did feel it was his way of lecturing and I did listen to him to have that feeling.

As far as his views go perhaps some even many have become mainstream now or accepted but not all I'm sure. You can probably select a few unpopular views you had when younger that are now more mainstream too. That doesn't mean the idea that he is not right now under current circumstances. Or that he isn't the right person to be making such points if they were valid.

Apart from the idea his background means he's very distant from many peoples lives and experiences, whether you feel that has relevance, there's also the long held view that as the heir to the throne and head of state he should be neutral and keep his views private except perhaps through official channels to relevant people. I believe that's the head of state way of doing things and aiui heir to the throne used to be similar in approach.

[Oldjohnw]

I don’t support the idea of an hereditary head of state, so let’s get that out of the way.

But just because it is the heir to such a system that says, for example, that we need to address soil erosion doesn’t negate that particular view. I have met Charles two or three times and found he was incredibly well informed about the subjects we were discussing.

[simonineaston]

Just listened to The UK Food Strategy Panel with Henry Dimbleby at the Oxford Farming Conference 2020 here, where - across the board - the commentators all called for higher levels of intervention, one way or another. Current government, so far, have responded by saying that that is the last thing they are planning to do... so there you go. The goverment is saying in effect that they don't give a fig about the nations' diet so long as economic growth continues... ! The most interesting segments for me was from Gregg's ceo and Denise Bentley from the First Love Foundation (a London-based food-bank project).