Is the cost of wholesome

SO MS Dearness (Letters), good wholesome food is out of reach for low-income families? Really? It costs less than £1 to make a ‘wholesome’ vegetable soup, which is less even than a cheap pizza. Probably £2 to concoct a basic salad and well under £5 to make a shepherd’s pie. As for a baked potato with beans, say 70p? And a baked apple with honey and raisins probably costs around 50p. It’s the same with school uniforms. All supermarkets stock inexpensive children’s white school shirts and grey trousers. Yet the bleeding hearts bemoan the fact that they are beyond the reach of some low-income families who — it seems — can still afford to dress their kids in designer jeans, T-shirts and branded trainers (and supply them with mobile phones). No, Ms Dearness, it’s not the money, it’s just laziness.

I’M NOT sure it’s a question of financial poverty that stops poor people getting wholesome food (Letters). Lentils, carrot, onions, spuds, cabbage, various types of bean are all so cheap that you could make a nutritious meal for less than 50p a head. I live on the edge of a tower block estate and I see a succession of pizza delivery scooters arriving all day and night. So, what do the pizzas cost? About £19 for a large one, plus fizzy drink, the last time I looked. Much later, it’s motability scooters that cart around the result — people who are too fat to walk or who have other illnesses which may be diet related — going to the pub and the bookies. We all have weaknesses, for sure, but this isn’t just about money.

Name and address supplied.

SHEENA DEARNESS is mistaken. I eat a balanced diet and cook from scratch. I spend no more than £25 a week on food and that includes a bottle of wine. I’m 80, I play golf three times a week and my BMI is 23. The real problem is no one can cook nowadays, or maybe they don’t have the inclination. When I suggested to my great niece that she should take some cookery lessons from her grandmother, who is an excellent cook, as are most women of her generation, her response was: ‘I’m not going to waste my expensive education in the kitchen, there’s a KFC on every corner.’

Name supplied, Bournemouth. WHEN the ‘poor’ were genuinely poor, before the war, all the working classes were thin, not fat. I was an unmarried mother of a girl who is still as slim as she was as a child, I bought wholesome food and cooked it myself. She is now a productive member of society. Obese children are victims of their parents, not of the ‘junk’ industry. Jamie Oliver has no experience of this side of society and is just assuming this. Ms Dearness also is out of touch.

MS O. ROBERTS, address supplied.

Every summer morning At the break of day, All the little dicky birds Wake up bright and gay. Open up their little beaks, Open up their throats, Filling all the morning air With sweet melodious notes. First there comes the blackbird Who always sings the best, Followed by the song thrush Who wakes up all the rest. Then we have a chorus of robin, finch and wren, Who call upon the other birds to start the song again. The G-7’s needing a fix, For Trump has been up to his tricks; And with tariffs galore World trade is at war, So next year it might be G-6.