I had to find this article in its entirety (no Torygraph paywall for me) and it's here:
I understand the points ninnies are making with regard to Jack. Xanthe Clay is an accomplished food writer with many years' experience and she has a better attitude to research and recipe testing than Jack, for sure.
However, my hackles were raised immediately by the blurb for this piece saying you could eat healthily and
maybe lose weight for £26/ week.
A very clickbaity approach that, when you read on, is just more of the same claptrap about budget cooking that so many other middle class food writers spout.
For one thing, she claims this is a full 7-day mealplan but the economics don't quite add up.
For breakfast, she suggests baking your own bread but then she doesn't cost any other ingredients like the eggs she recommends you eat it with.
Likewise, she suggests making your own yoghurt -- okay, that's fine at a push -- but then doesn't cost the fruit and toppings she suggests to make it more interesting.
Also, the £26 is supposed to be for one person but all the recipes are for 4 people. So, if you're one or two people in a household, these costings don't work. Unless you bake one loaf and only eat a quarter of it over a week's breakfasts and lunches. Really?
A lot of what she's proposing involves making things from scratch -- bread, yoghurt, stocks etc -- which isn't great for people who are time poor or who have limited cooking facilities (like I do, in shitty temporary accommodation). And, while she loves organic homemade yoghurt, she wants us to all give up meat except for turkey legs because organic, free range is too costly. You have to run your oven a lot to bake bread, roast turkey and beetroot too.
There's nothing much here for harassed family cooks catering for fussy eaters. No suggestions about how to swop out ingredients that are increasingly unaffordable (like butter or olive oil). No sweets or snacks at all. Just a lot of overnight oats, lentils and abstemiousness. No convenience foods like baked beans that really help to stretch budgets and fill tummies.
Her point about weight loss? This isn't supported at all by what she's recommending here -- just clickbait to lure you into the article.
She's not giving Monroesque absurd economics of costing half an onion and a teaspoon of spice but there's no real substance here and little understanding of what it takes to eat well on very little money.
This is just one more middle class foodie telling the povs to eat turkey legs and lentils every day. I'd lose weight too if I had to face that.
Sorry, Xanthe, I'm out.
I’m so sorry x
