Oh, Delia, what have you done?

[marshlander]

I can't believe Delia lately. I sooo dissapointed and urgh!! frustrated - first the unrecipe book, now this support for factory farming
It's not many years since my friends and I would refer to her as 'saint delia'

just look at this http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... lia116.xml

[Chickenlady]

It is odd, isn't it? I like to think she is swimming against the tide, but we shall see...

[baldowrie]

I think she is just being pragmatic!

If your living on the poverty breadline you can't afford principals.

[justskint]

Dalia Smith has made several valid points on cheap chickens being affordable to the poor, as I am one I can see her point, but for the greater part she's talking through her roots and ought to be planted head down with compost.

She is a mouthy football supporter!!

[Annpan]

I just don't get the cheap chicken 'for the poor' we have chicken once every few months... because it is too expensive (I will only buy organic raised meat and animal products)
We have lots of beans, chickpeas and mushrooms... we bulk out minced beef with these so that it streches to several meals.
Perhaps the poor need better education and the industry needs to be better policed, and alternatives pushed - by the government and/or NGOs.

I don't see how people have some god given right to eat chicken... we do however have a god given duty to look after our planet and all it's inhabitants...

[justskint]

Te**os sell chickens for £1.99. They being Te**os exploit the producer.

[circlecross]

gods, if she really wants to teach people how to cook, and to be frugal then using ready made mash and tinned mince isn't particularly frugal - buying 2lb of spuds and 1lb of mince with an onion, some lentils or chick peas, a tin of toms and if you really must some frozen peas - now there's a meal which will last you a while and is easy!

[ina]

She really doesn't know much about the politics of food - that much I must agree on. Not her fault that the press insisted on getting her take on the matter.

This I find interesting, from the radio 4 newsletter:
Next Monday, You and Yours, 12.00-1.00pm
Free range chickens: T***o has allegedly put up its prices but not passed these on to suppliers

[Martin]

let's be honest - there is something of Pooh Bear about the woman - of very little brain
Probably needed to churn out another potboiler to keep some dreadful fifth rate football club afloat, and went for the thicket market (possibly quite astute if you consider the amount of vile junk food sold by the supermarkets)

[red]

I think she is just being pragmatic!

If your living on the poverty breadline you can't afford principals.

rubbish.

and if she were interested in people living in poverty she would A give away her money and B write a book on how to eat well for dirt cheap.

as it is she is advocating buying tinned mince lamb from M&S, frozen mash and sliced frozen aubergines - nothing pragmatic about that - just plain lazy.

I have on occasion been very broke. and there is no way i would be in M&S buying food!!!!
I have always defended Delia - as although I find her extremely irritating as a person, her cookbooks were about proper cooking.. no aunt bessies here - how to make yorkshire pud from scratch. Now she has sold out and hides behind caring about poor people. oh really? proceeds of the book going to the poor are they?

[Millymollymandy]

I'm really disappointed in her. And quite how is her new cookbook about showing people how to make quick 'healthy' food if it all comes readymade and frozen or out of cans?

[baldowrie]

I never really like her but here is another article with a slightly different slant

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1773

and the cook book is how to cheat at cooking

[The Riff-Raff Element]

let's be honest - there is something of Pooh Bear about the woman - of very little brain
Probably needed to churn out another potboiler to keep some dreadful fifth rate football club afloat, and went for the thicket market (possibly quite astute if you consider the amount of vile junk food sold by the supermarkets)

Oi! That's MY football team you're talking about you swine!!!

And they're not "fifth rate." Third rate, perhaps, but never fifth rate.

Despite being one who indirectly benefits from her largess, and to resort to the vernacular, I think she is bang out of order on this one.

Factory farming is actually at the root of food poverty. In no way is it a solution to the economic feeding of a family. People have become habituated to cheap meat, cheap dairy (and, to a lesser extent, cheap fish), and have lost the art of eating well on a budget.

A chicken should run to three meals for a family. We manage it and we're frankly doing nothing difficult. But for the supermarkets any drop in consumption is bad news, no matter how cheap or vile the products they are selling, and that is what we are up against.

I have no idea how people can be convinced to eat less but eat better. Despite the glorious sunshine I confess to feeling rather down in the mouth about the whole business this morning.

[justskint]

Well, this Dalia suff is hotting-up.

She has no talent, few skills. A chancer, nice work if you can blag-it.

[Marc]

I think she's very much a middle-class tory - no real idea what's going on in the world outside her little circle, and that circle no doubt includes a few directors of certain supermarkets!!