Food is Life

Sunday 7pm

So why do we stuff the same overprocessed, prepackaged nonsense into our bodies day after day as quickly as possible without a second thought ? Why do we raise animals in inhumane conditions caring more about money than their and our health ? I am as guilty as the next person here but have just been reading " Cook with jamie " ( by Jamie Oliver of course ) - he says all of the above much more eloquently than me. But I agree with him, cookery should be taught to everybody in schools, I wish it had been to me. My first cooking revelation was lemon meringue pie. I knew how to make it from watching my mum. You just needed the packet of lemon meringue pie mix. Then I looked in a cookery book and this may sound stupid, but you don't need the packet ! All the ingredients are already in the cupboard ! Of course once I discovered that, a new world opened up - not just lemon meringue but grapefruit meringue, lime meringue or even lime meringue on a chocolate biscuit base instead of digestives. If cookery was taught in schools we would all know these things, and if I still want to eat pot noodles or never cook again at least I would be making an informed choice. Knowledge is power and the only protection we have against those that make our choices for us. That is the same people that decided to feed dead sheep back to sheep and dead sheep to cattle resulting in BSE and the killing and burning of whole herds. The same people who invented battery farming and can raise a turkey from egg to behemoth in a matter of weeks. Knowledge is power.

Oh and in case you were wondering, just as everybody can draw, everybody can cook. Read "Appetite" by Nigel Slater and you will see.