When I was a lad in school, Domestic Science was a compulsory subject we had to take, but, this has long since been abolished. In domestic science, youngsters would be taught how to cook numerous healthy nutritious meals on a budget. We were taught how to bake bread, how to cook offal, and how to feed a family using proper raw ingredients.
A key aspect was budgeting and costing the meals, including how to pad out meals and how to reduce food waste. The abolishment of domestic science in schools has, in my view, had an adverse knock on effect on a national level. We are seeing more and more people in the UK, and across the world going to food banks - why? Because these people who rely on the foodbanks have become addicted to processed convenience food, they do not know how to prepare food from scratch. Lets look at a simple example - our daily bread. One loaf here in the UK costs between £0.45 and £1.00, yet 1kg of flour costs £0.45 and can make 6 loaves of bread. Surely, if people are so desperate for food, a bag of flour would be far better to donate to a food bank than one loaf of bread. However, we have to dumb down our thinking to the lowest common denominator - what if people lack the knowledge to bake their own bread? Hmmm, well, libraries are free to all, and they could easily borrow a book full of bread recipes, couldn’t they? One would like to think so, but it is far easier for these people to go to a food bank and collect their processed ready meals then to put the effort in to learn how to cook. Cooking cheap and nutritious meals is easy - I am sure that those on Jobseekers and disability allowance could learn a few skills - after all, they are not holding down jobs and have plenty of time on their hands. Food banks have taken away the need for people to look after themselves!
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With the general election looming in the UK, over the past few weeks I have been considering which of the political parties to vote for. These days, it is no longer a two horse race between labour and the Tories, but a new wealth of idealists are spreading their political propaganda. I am sure that many of these would not come close to picking up the governmental reigns in parliament, nor having a clue on how to effectively run the British Empire. There have been many chuckle worthy statements mentioned in the manifestos of late, but the one that I am currently rabbiting on about is a statement that the Green Party have launched. If they do get into power (unlikely), they wish to bring in an outright ban on keeping rabbits and chickens in cages. I quote from the Green Party website This has many issues both on a personal and an economic level. More eggs would have to be imported from Eastern European countries, where animal welfare is of a lower standard. Not only would this drive the price of eggs up, but also increase the carbon footprint and food miles. Is this really the aim of the Green Party? On a personal note, I can just imagine poor little Josephine giving her pet rabbit one final cuddle good bye before her Dad takes it to the bottom of the garden to snap its neck. After all, it would be the law! I do believe that animal welfare should be mentioned in political manifestos, but when such concepts have not been thought through, one does have to wonder how these so called educated politicians would rule Great Britain! |
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