What a wonderful article by Joanna Blythman in response to Jamie Oliver's frustration and naivety about Britain's eating culture (Oliver Twit, Essay of the week, September 1).
What we put on our plate depends so much on what we have in our purse. This little rich boy needs to have some more sophistication - it's politics, Jamie.
Catriona Whitton
Dunblane
Joanna Blythman evinces that rare combination of erudition, good sense and compassion in highlighting the purblindness of the affluent (including Jamie Oliver) who avoid the painful reality of the gulf between rich and poor by maligning the poor for filling their stomachs with low-cost junk food so that they can afford the biggest flat screens.
In doing so, they ignore not only the fact that they themselves can afford flat screens and healthy food, but also that the poor are often the most susceptible to media persuasion because they don't have jobs, nice homes, big cars etc to shore up their sense of personal worth. Blythman highlights again and again our addiction across the social specrum to junk food and that we are, rich and poor, at risk of persuasion by the greed of massive food corporations.
But are we listening? If the Government had the courage to take her wisdom on board, the source of obesity could be resolved overnight. Still, let's go on pretending people are getting fatter because they are lazy and irresponsible, rather than alienating the food corporations that poison us.
Joyce Gunn Cairns
Edinburgh
Joanna Blythman castigates Jamie Oliver for patronising the poor yet assumes only people of higher incomes will read her article. I'm skint but I am one of the fortunate ones to have been taught how to cook at shool and at home. I was also taught how to read. Ms Blythman's accusation that politicians are in thrall to "Big Food" may be true but her statement that fruit and vegetables are unaffordable to those on low incomes is not. I have been eating a vegetarian diet for eight months and am not lacking in the "high-quality protein" she suggests is essential. I manage to work as a fisherman without any ill effects.
So there you have it: a poor, literate, heathy vegetarian. And I don't own a telly. Shameful, I know, but at least I won't have to watch Mr Oliver's latest offering.
Mark Donnelly
Achiltibuie
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