We shouldn't let press hysteria distract us from the real problems with the UK food industry.
We shouldn’t let press hysteria distract us from the real problems with the UK food industry
Yesterday a damning report was released about the rise in food bank usage in the UK.
The coalition’s cuts have created a barely credible situation where huge numbers of British people cannot afford to feed themselves.
A combination of inflation, a badly administered benefits system and falling wages have hit society’s poorest families; the government is failing to meet its citizens’ most basic needs.
But this is not what is dominating the headlines today. Instead, it is the unfortunate words of Tory peer Baroness Jenkin and her comments on the report – “Poor people don’t know how to cook” – that have sent the papers mad.
Embarrassing, but ultimately a relief for the Conservatives because scrutiny is being deflected away from deeply harmful policies to an on-the-spot blunder.
As the Emily Thornberry incident showed, the press much prefer to direct their scorn at individuals, and will seize any chance to vilify a wrong-footed politician (see Candy Crush Saga, Plebgate).
Also, Baroness Jenkin is the wrong target. She is one of the few Tories who has actually been active on this issue. She was on the team behind the inquiry published yesterday, which was deeply critical of the government and made a number of sensible recommendations aimed at helping food bank users to recover their independence.
In November she told parliament that, she was going to “bang on and on” about the issue of food waste. Hopefully, the report that she was part of will do the same thing, and go towards making some much-needed policy changes.
But even if the report has real impact, Baroness Jenkin will be remembered mainly by the public for her offensive language choice, such is the effect of an hysterical and petty press.
Of Baroness Jenkin’s assumption, it seems that ‘poor people’ eating ready meals are probably doing so because of a lack of time and money, not because they don’t know how to cook. Even if education is the issue, people cannot be expected to make good nutrition choices when packaging and promotions are so confusing.
As if to illustrate this point, the Department of Health has revealed today that it is considering putting the official ‘five-a-day’ logo on pizzas and ready meals. Public Health England found that 40 per cent of pre-prepared products, including lasagne and meatballs, contained at least one portion of fruit and vegetables.
This sounds like a bad joke – “wine contains grapes so it must be healthy” etc – but it will be a very serious bad decision if it is implemented. It is completely misleading, and simply a way of making people feel better about themselves without actually having to change their lifestyles.
It is also a way for food retailers to refute claims that they are perpetuating an obesity crisis by making unhealthy foods so much cheaper; they will be able to facetiously point to the deals on pre-packaged things in tomato sauce.
If children grow up believing pizza to be a balanced meal, then why would they bother to learn to cook?
But it is not only poor people who would be affected by this change; it will be a godsend for anyone who prefers pizza to apples and doesn’t want to feel guilty about it, making all the problems we already have worse.
Kawther Hashem, from the Action on Sugar (AOS) campaign group, told The Times today that retailers should be making it easier for consumers to eat whole fruit and vegetables through their promotions, rather than confusing them with added logos.
Action on Sugar have previously campaigned to remove fruit juices from the recommended list of ‘healthy things’ that should be eaten daily, on the grounds that it is confusing for parents.
Only 150ml glass of unsweetened fruit juice counts towards five-a-day, but most supermarket fruit juices for children are either less than this or filled with extra sugar; AOS found that over a quarter of fruit juices were more sugary than coca-cola.
Parents cannot be expected to make the right choices when the advice is so conflicting.
If Baroness Jenkin is really concerned about nutritional education then she should denounce this idea immediately, while the spotlight is on her, as a huge step backwards.
Ruby Stockham is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow her on Twitter
6 Responses to “Baroness Jenkin is the wrong target for our outrage over food poverty”
littleoddsandpieces
The Tory Baroness is the cause of starvation’s rise of 70 per cent since 2010, because that is what welfare reform is.
The Tories did this with the Workhouse and the New Poor Law, that forbade feeding the poor, back in the 19th century, that killed 5 million poor.
The Tories cannot admit that it is their policy that is the cause of starvation, because the government would fall. The Lib Dems are merely acting in aid and abet role and just as guilty.
The old will soon be on benefit for life, with NIL STATE PENSION FOREVER IN OLD AGE
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now
This despite a partner having paid anything up to half a century into the National Insurance Fund, and the poorest workers being told work pays, when now facing no state pension at all, that would be the sole food and fuel money in old age.
The National Insurance Fund is not only full, not needing a top up from tax, but is actually being called a surplus of £30 billion, that is the denied state pension payout since 2013, when half over 50s / 60s are within the working poor (the bulk now going to food banks) and the majority reason not in work due to disability / chronic sickness and those benefits being lost, with no other income.
The Tories threatening lives of all ages from food and fuel poverty.
The Greens, for some reason best known to themselves, will not shout from the rooftops their solution to the poor (maybe a third of the population now of all ages equally) that is both new and unique:
– universal and automatic Citizen Income, non-withdrawable
to the level of basic tax allowance
so ending all the cruel benefits regime that is shown by the huge rise of the food banks after a million benefit sanctions
– Full State Pension for all citizens, irregardless of NI Fund contribution / credit history, mostly lost due to benefit rule changes and early retirement when rules were 30 years to get full state pension now changed to 35 years required contribution history.
Even someone turning 80 in 2016 will not get the tiny top up to an even tinier part basic state pension, just when War Veterans are in line to lose disability money in the move from DLA to PIP, when the state pension is already the lowest of all rich naitons bar poor Mexico.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now
David Lindsay
Baroness Jenkin is a member of the House of Lords Refreshment Committee that spent £250,000 of public money on champagne,
When did she last cook from scratch, or even at all? For example, I for one would pay good money to see her peel a potato.
She now says that the poor can cook after all. That is just as well. Where did she think that her own food came from? Who did she think cooked it?
David Lindsay
There were 918,600 “adverse” Jobseeker’s Allowance sanction decisions between April 2013 and March 2014.
And that’s just JSA.
No, you couldn’t actually starve on benefits.
But you could off them, and the people who decide these things are paid by how many of you they put off them.
As for food banks as an expression of charity in response to tragedy, yes, but that tragedy itself is still this Government’s fault.
Max Hunter
This is an interesting article, but I was disappointed not to see you develop ideas about long-term solutions to the hunger problem, i.e. urban permaculture and reform of agriculture.
Leon Wolfeson
Growing expensive food in urban areas is really not a good answer, no.