foodprices | Real Food Lover

I am still feeling disappointed in Delia.

Claiming to eschew the “politics of food”, she makes this sweeping political statement:

“If the whole world goes organic then the state of the Third World will really be twice as bad as it is at the moment and I’m much more interested in people getting enough to eat.”

Get your facts right, Delia. (And spare me the sanctimony).

Farming organically actually improves the food security of poor countries. It also means farmers in the two-thirds world are not reliant on agrochemicals – which are bad for their health and purse and environment.

The only ‘Delia effect’ I am getting right now is intense irritation at her misinformation.

Delia Smith for poor food

The TV queen of cookery has displeased me. Delia Smith has made rude remarks in the UK media about something very dear to my real food lover heart: she has dissed organic food.

I am miffed she is using the politics of food to promote her comeback. Delia “retired” six years ago to be director of a football club but now she is back on our screens with a new cookery show.

Her new book, How to Cheat at Cooking, makes a point of using ingredients such as tinned lamb. Look, I have nothing against convenience foods. But she should at least give people correct information so they can make up their own minds.

She said on national radio that organic chickens are expensive (without explaining why) and poor people can eat the caged ones from factory farms.

Delia claims to despise the cult of the celebrity chef but I can’t help feeling she is using her celebrity to seize the People’s Cook crown.

If she really cared about poor people she would have explained how to buy food on a working-class estate. Or how to cook an organic chicken on state benefits by make it last for twelve meals.

You can eat organic on a budget if you cook from scratch. (It’s actually those convenience foods that hike a food bill.)

Instead the People’s Cook is telling people to buy convenience foods from middle-class supermarkets. You’ll be lucky to find a Sainsbury’s in a food desert, Delia.