UK Sugar Tax - It's War!

If you want a full sugar Coke/Pepsi then have one, if you want a cake then have a slice, if you want a biscuit have a couple, no problem. The problem comes when you are having 6 Cokes a day, half a cake, half packet of biscuits a day. Everything as it should be in sensible portions and there is no problem. I cannot stand hearing mothers saying they cannot afford to feed their children healthy food. Complete utter tosh, veg are cheap but you have to prepare them which for some is more trouble than a Greggs Dummy and full fat coke.
 
You have to teach people how to cook it's not an innate skill; to teach you have to have people who want to learn. If you tell people they don't have time to cook, that ready made food and eating out is something to aspire to why would they then want to learn to cook? Equally as there are plenty of kitchens out there which aren't really designed for full on cooking.

I cook from scratch regularly but sometimes after a hard dayat work, when you get home after six with hungry kids and limited time for homework, showers and so on; I'd be quite happy to stick a pasty in front of them (instead I give them pasta and pesto which is the equivalent in our house)

Which leads to another point you can't feed kids healthily with just vegetables. Oil, butter, milk, cheese, herbs, spices, bread, rice, pasta, fruit, pots, pans, sauces, mayonnaise, some more mayonnaise for when the first lot runs out and a bit of meat. Believe me it all adds up, especially when you are on a tight budget. I sometimes struggle and I'm a smart and capable guy who not only knows how to cook but how to do so on a budget as well.
 
Obviously you can't feed them on just vegetables and I wasn't suggesting it. I was saying healthy food is as cheap as junk if you want to put a little effort in. Sometimes I think it's easier to not comment then to try to join in a topic as it just gets twisted.
 
A journalist was buying cheap food for one pound meals. Chicken burgers with tinned spaghetti. I could do a spag bol with lots of pasta less than a pound a portion.
 
wayne mattison said:
Obviously you can't feed them on just vegetables and I wasn't suggesting it. I was saying healthy food is as cheap as junk if you want to put a little effort in. Sometimes I think it's easier to not comment then to try to join in a topic as it just gets twisted.
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Perhaps looking at it as just a misinterpretation of your point on my part would make you more likely to keep commenting? It would be a shame if you stopped. The point I was trying to make still stands though - it isn't just down to effort but also ability. Having the facilities, having the knowledge, having the ingredients and thinking you ought to try are all necessary too. I've lived in a fair number of shared houses over the years and in my experience most people have one meal/dish they can reliably make from scratch and rely on the usual suspects for the rest. Very few could do a different from scratch meal every day of the week. A few couldn't really do any reliably at all.

Bring back Home Economics - make it a compulsory subject. Get all Nanny State on the purveyors of deeply unhealthy food and their advertising/product placement. While we're at it let's bring back the 'flats' they used to have in schools for teaching housework and basic living skills, the number of people who can't iron or wash up is scary.
 
I agree with your points @ Count, we have been far too lax in the teaching of how to live in the adult world from both a schooling and parenting point of view. Home economics taught me a little. Yeah I baked a few Butterfly buns carried home in a Quality Street tin, they seldom made it! What taught me was sitting down to a home cooked meal six nights a week with zero choice of what was put in front of me. I was never asked what I wanted but what I got was hot, nutritious,basic, tasty and was mostly burned off when I went back out playing with friends before bedtime. Convenience equals laziness for the most part. Why should a Mother finish a days work and peel Spuds,Carrots, and make a Yorkshire when a supermarket sells peeled Carrots,ready to roast Potatoes and Aunt Bessies? Let's not forget that even though it isn't Government or School led there is a plethora of cooking shows on TV where people can learn if they can be bothered to at least have a go at a home made meal for not a lot of outlay.
Well perhaps the answer is to cut the Pizza, Kebabs,Fish and Chips, Indian and Chinese takeaways to what they used to be. Weekend treats to give Mum or Dad a little time off from the stove. Same with sweet treats. Nothing wrong with a treat after a healthy evening meal. There is a lot wrong with one after a portion of whatever goes into a plateful of Donner Kebab meat and Chips.
My Wife is a Nurse, she works nights so last night I came back from dropping her off at work, poured a small portion of Pasta into a pan of boiling water, opened a tin of crushed Tomatoes and used half in a pan with a clove of crushed Garlic and a teaspoon of mixed herbs, once cooked it was poured onto the pasta with a little bit of grated Cheddar. It took less than 10 minutes and no skill whatsoever, I could have ordered a Chinese.
I know I'm old fashioned but when my lad comes home and complains to his Mum that his partner of choice hasn't washed his clothes, ironed them nor has she even attempted to cook a meal in almost six months and that he is missing fruit and veg I have to have a rye little smile to myself because he is finally learning life at home wasn't too bad. Please forgive the long prose, I find it difficult to get my point across in a succinct manner at times.
 
My wife and I cook most of our meals from scratch and share the cooking, often we'll make a big pan of chilli, bolognaise or stew that we'll get a few nights from. Our daughter can pitch in too when she's old enough, I don't want her to leave home and not be able to cook for herself. I also do my own laundry and help with the housework, I don't want her future partner to expect that she do it all.

While I agree that home economics should be taught in schools the main responsibility should lie with the parents to prepare their offspring to make their own way in the world, unfortunately a lot of them don't seem to be able to do it themselves much less instil it in a child.
 
Most of my relationships have ended up with me doing the lion's share of the cooking, if only for the sake of variety as much as health. Cooking programs I find useful for tips and hints, the occasional flavour combination etc. Mostly they assume a much bigger larder, budget etc. than I have. I was checking out some 'Meals for under a Fiver' recipes online the other day by some chef or other, the main ingredients were under a fiver but the assumption was you had a whole list of stuff (herbs, spices, flour, butter etc.) in the larder to go with them. If, like you and I, you know what you are doing you can adapt and work round things, make something with what you've got. If you are like my customers who have worked on a computer for twenty years and yet "know nothing about computers", you think well I haven't got all that or know how to do that or ... I'll get some oven chips and frozen lasagne out instead.
 
chris.hale said:
My wife and I cook most of our meals from scratch and share the cooking, often we'll make a big pan of chilli, bolognaise or stew that we'll get a few nights from. Our daughter can pitch in too when she's old enough, I don't want her to leave home and not be able to cook for herself. I also do my own laundry and help with the housework, I don't want her future partner to expect that she do it all.

While I agree that home economics should be taught in schools the main responsibility should lie with the parents to prepare their offspring to make their own way in the world, unfortunately a lot of them don't seem to be able to do it themselves much less instil it in a child.
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If the parents don't know how can they teach and how can they be responsible for what they don't know. The ability to recognise and rectify such a lack in oneself is a quite an amazing thing which few can do.
 
Blademonkey said:
I've just watched the film, funny but probably not far from the truth ! :) P.
Thank's for the recommendation .
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Pleased you liked the film BM. I thought the famous action sequence with Roddy Piper is a lot of fun and the aliens are superb.

I'm not sure if you've seen any other John Carpenter films but my other favourites include Big Trouble In Little China, and for amongst this horror films 'The Thing' is truly wonderful and 'The Fog' is very good as well. They seem to cycle some of these films on ITV4 and if you have the channel and see it in the listings, they can be a very enjoyable way to spend an hour and a half.
 
donnie_arko said:
Pleased you liked the film BM. I thought the famous action sequence with Roddy Piper is a lot of fun and the aliens are superb.

I'm not sure if you've seen any other John Carpenter films but my other favourites include Big Trouble In Little China, and for amongst this horror films 'The Thing' is truly wonderful and 'The Fog' is very good as well. They seem to cycle some of these films on ITV4 and if you have the channel and see it in the listings, they can be a very enjoyable way to spend an hour and a half.
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I shall keep an eye out for these, a little light entertainment. :)
 
I am amazed at how often my neighbours eat takeaways. The number of pizza boxes and polystyrene boxes. I get takeaways myself, but only items I can't recreate such as authentic Thai. But burgers? And pizza several times a week.
 
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