Jamie Oliver has been around the political spectrum these days.
He’s a popular chef who is known for making dishes that are easy to make and relatively healthy. With the rise of obesity in children getting at an all time high, he’s proposed a solution involving a “sugar tax”. The tax would make junk food that’s making people obese more expensive, and force people to opt for healthier choices. His reasoning is that the sugar tax will save the country from the healthcare costs of taking care of obese kids, so it’ll have a lot more money overall.
However, a lot of people don’t think the same way.
One of his dessert dishes is “Cookies and Cream” which is a drink served in a chocolate cup, which contains 46 spoons of sugar, a whopping six times the daily recommended amount. With the sheer amount of dishes he has, it’s unsurprising that he has sugary desserts.
A lot of people simply viewed his stance as an attack on poor people, because those are the ones who’ll really be affected.
Jamie Oliver: I'm apolitical
Also Jamie Oliver: poor people shouldn't have pizza
— Alekseev Stan Account (@praxxxxxis) May 16, 2018
Ketty Hopkins came forward and told her story of how things were like for her.
everyone knows my opinion on jamie oliver by now (insufferable bellend) but im still going to weigh in on this whole "make unhealthy food more expensive" thing from the perspective of a girl who was genuinely poor growing up and ate awfully:
— tonks fan account (@sibylpain) May 16, 2018
from the age of about 6, my dad had to mostly raise me and my brother on his own as my mother cheated, left him and then became too violent and dangerous to even be allowed on our street. now when i say we were poor, i mean very poor. money given to me on birthdays often had to
— tonks fan account (@sibylpain) May 16, 2018
be spent on food for us to survive. my dad met my mother in a psych ward after he was sectioned when they found him too depressed to function, with no possessions and the intent to die on a park bench near the hospital. so we had no rich relatives to live off growing up either.
— tonks fan account (@sibylpain) May 16, 2018
It’s a glimpse into the life why the poor are poor.
he worked full time, and with two young kids this meant a lot of money was spent on our childcare. so that's more money gone, when we barely had enough to live on cheap food as it was. this meant quinoa and couscous was out of the question. in fact, we usually lived on whatever
— tonks fan account (@sibylpain) May 16, 2018
was in the reduced section. even fruit and veg was too expensive, so my brother and i had to take multivitamins in order to get a lot of the things we needed. im seeing a lot of people go "well tinned veg is cheap, you're just lazy!"
— tonks fan account (@sibylpain) May 16, 2018
which is all very easy to say when you're a 20 year old student who has never had a full time job or a lot of bills to pay. when you're a young father with severe depression working countless hours in a tiring job coming home to two young kids while having to fear for your life
— tonks fan account (@sibylpain) May 16, 2018
She grew up in a terrible home.
because your ex wife leaves you 150 threatening voicemails a day and keeps violating her restraining order, going as far as to attempt to run you over, have your kids abducted and smash the glass in your door, all while struggling intensely financially, would YOU have the
— tonks fan account (@sibylpain) May 16, 2018
energy to cook a nutritious meal from scratch? when you're getting 4 hours sleep a night on an old couch because you're worried if you sleep in your bed that you won't hear if anyone tries to break in? ill answer that for you: absolutely fucking not.
— tonks fan account (@sibylpain) May 16, 2018
at the end of the day, me and my brother had no significant health problems caused by our diet. my dad always tried his absolute hardest. most working class parents are incredibly conscious about the wellbeing of their children.
— tonks fan account (@sibylpain) May 16, 2018
Parents buy junk because it’s easy and they’re too tired.
the reason these parents buy junk food is this: because it's all they can afford, and they are TIRED trying to make ends meet which impedes their ability to cook from scratch. many are also depressed/disabled which makes it even harder to cook.
— tonks fan account (@sibylpain) May 16, 2018
if they had raised prices on sugary and fatty foods when i was a kid, we wouldn't have eaten. plain and simple. in my humble opinion, it's much better for a kid to eat a pizza than not eat a damn thing.
— tonks fan account (@sibylpain) May 16, 2018
if you GENUINELY want to make a difference in the lives of these families, here are some things you should actually ask the government to do:
-raise the minimum wage so people can live on it
-stop cutting disabled people's benefits so they won't stress so much about survival— tonks fan account (@sibylpain) May 16, 2018
She also suggested ways to fix things.
-more affordable housing so they have more money to spend on food instead of rent
-fund more free adult education so that parents who are able can study a skill which will help them earn more money
-stop fucking cutting nhs physical and mental health services, if ill parents get— tonks fan account (@sibylpain) May 16, 2018
access to decent care, they might become more able to cook from scratch
in conclusion: stop blaming poor families for eating unhealthy food you middle class knobs and STOP VOTING TORY peace out
— tonks fan account (@sibylpain) May 16, 2018
Another person also came forward with her story.
I am so glad you wrote this thread!! I grew up with 2 working class parents. My mum was struggling with severe anxiety and depression and my dad worked fulltime but also has depression. My sister and I grew up on quite a lot of cheap and not necessarily nutritious foods…
— Sarah Jane Picton ? (@NarahSarah) May 16, 2018
Neither of us were overweight or physically unwell. I think it is so easy to shame parents. My mum was struggling and the last thing she wanted to think about was cooking a meal from scratch. We never went hungry, though, and that would have happened if food prices were higher.
— Sarah Jane Picton ? (@NarahSarah) May 16, 2018
It's incredibly easy to judge families but my parents always tried their hardest to keep us fed. If that meant spaghetti hoops and instant mash and cheap chocolate biscuits, so be it.
— Sarah Jane Picton ? (@NarahSarah) May 16, 2018
There’s a general hatred towards these things.
This is always the answer wealthy people suggest. Make things more expensive so poor people can't have them.
— Press Not Sorry (@press_not_sorry) May 17, 2018
These stories, while eye-opening, would be more effective if they were the kind of people Oliver was targetting. Neither of these people had bad health, so they’re not who Oliver was saying he was targetting. What do you think?
This article was originally published on RearFront.