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A Girl Called Jack... time for action?

L

LiamO

Well-Known Member
(Note to mods... this thread is as political as you can get... please do not feel tempted to move it somewhere lifestyley)

http://agirlcalledjack.com/

Well, could you do it? Could you choose to follow her recipes for a month to see where it would leave you and yours... not just financially but in terms of taking action for yourself, feeling empowered, throwing off the shackles of deeply-conditioned consumerism?

I reckon it's a matter of mindset.

If you chose to think of each mouthful as swallowing your pride as well as food; as a reflection of your dire financial circumstances; as an infliction the bastard tories have forced upon you; then I'd imagine you would struggle to last two days. You'd be so busy producing excess bile and froth that you'd hardly be able to digest the food. With that mindset, every mouthful would stick to your teeth and stick in your craw.

Now if the plan is to fan the embers of anger and produce enough venom to go and wreck your local conservative club/Sainsbury's/tories head then you would be on a winner, But rage is as non-substainable (is that a word) as it is unproductive.

If, however, you chose to think of it as political action of the most liberating kind; as a chance to reverse so many years of societal conditioning; to free yourself and your family from the sugar-induced coma of inertia.... then every mouthful becomes, in and of itself, a subversive act, a step on the path to personal freedom.

I'm not saying it would be easy, especially with kids, but most things worth having don't come easy.it would be worth a go, no?
 
I'd be interested in compiling a list of compelling reasons to give it a lash. Of course, you can also feel free to

a) take the piss (for example… King Biscuit's post on the Jamie Cuntiver thread s one of the funniest things I have read on Urban)
King Biscuit Time said:

Oi! Povvs! What are you eating that crap for. It's simple to eat healthily like my mate the Sicilian street sweeper. Just make a few common sense changes to the recipe and you're laughing. Spaghetti may be the cheap energy rich staple carb of choice in Italy, but in the UK that job is served by chipped potatoes. A nice savoury tang of umami may be provided by 25 cooked mussels, but seeing as Rotherham is about 70 miles from the sea, perhaps you could use a British speciality that travels better and lasts longer, say a sprinkling of Cheddar cheese. - It's hard to get tomatoes to grow and ripen in Rotherham in the winter, but to get around this, people often preserved the flavour of tomatoes in a special chutney-like sweet preserve called Tomato Ketchup, add a dollop of that and you're away. - I call it Jamie's British spaghetti, Mussels and tomato sauce. Now settle down and enjoy your meal, and while you eat it, why not catch up with one of my shows on your television.
Click to expand...


b) poke some welcome holes in the position outlined above
c) Start a hilarious range of threads making puns of this thread title or
d) froth and rage


as an alternative
 
frogwoman said:
the point is that people shouldn't really have to live like that ...
Click to expand...


I know. Circumstances forced her hand. She went through exactly the mindset thing outlined in the OP... but chose to make it a positive/liberating experience and then made it a deeply political one with her blog.

I think my main point here is that taking personal responsibility for fundamental change; taking massive decisive action; getting a result; does not have to turn anyone into a 'I pulled myself up by my bootstraps'/ 'anyone can do it if they want to and work hard'/ self-made (wo)man/ Tory whingebag (a la Jamie Oliver).

And anybody who does it and remembers where they came from, like Jack (or mebbe JK Rowling) should be celebrated.

I know people 'shouldn't really have to live like that' but the fact is that many of us do. The questions for me are 1. How do you empower people to take action for themsleves instead of falling into the traps of social isolation, self-pity and victimhood... and 2. defending people's 'entitlement' to eat sugary/salty shite is exactly what those manipulating us want... and yet we readily walk into the trap time after time.

What if 'living like that' is not actually a bad thing at all. What if 'living like that' is something we can choose, for ourselves?
 
frogwoman said:
isn't the point that a lot of people have no choice?
Click to expand...

True and false I think.

A lot of people certainly feel like they have no choices, especially when they are on the breadline. Jack's action shows we do always have choices. Not of our circumstances, but of how we perceive them and act on them. This kind of turning adversity into victory is the type of thing the Right love and claim as their own. We should not let them.

frogwoman said:
and that people like Jamie Oliver etc are just normalising it?
Click to expand...
Yes. These attitudes seem widespread.
 
Because it sounds about as worthwhile and politically useful as volunteering for a pay-cut or redundancy just to prove (to who for gods sake?) that you can do it. Your OP is nonsense frankly liam. You seem to have neglected to explain why you think this would be a good thing for people to do.
 
If I suggested this to my better half I would get a smack in the mouth and a lecture about how she grew up eating basic/poverty/rubbish food and so doesn't want to go back there as part of some hare-brained social experiment.

I like A Girl Called Jack, but her contribution is much better as:

a) Demonstrating how hard life is on benefits - and putting a human face on it.
b) Providing practical advice to people in the same situation as her.

I am up for this though:

LiamO said:
The questions for me are 1. How do you empower people to take action for themsleves instead of falling into the traps of social isolation, self-pity and victimhood...
Click to expand...

I don't think you achieve that by following her recipes? :confused:
 
butchersapron said:
Because it sounds about as worthwhile and politically useful as volunteering for a pay-cut or redundancy just to prove (to who for gods sake?) that you can do it.
Click to expand...

To who? To yourself. To your kids. To your cats. We are a continent of sugar/salt addicts eating far more than we need to. We do this mostly because we have been manipulated since birth to do so. To be good consumers. The fact is that westerners diets are fucked up. The poorest are also the fattest. And yet here we are demanding that those who can least afford it have the right to eat poison too.

Can tell me a more politically useful thing than enabling and empowering some of the most marginalised, disenfranchised and disaffected people in society?


butchersapron said:
Your OP is nonsense frankly liam. You seem to have neglected to explain why you think this would be a good thing for people to do.
Click to expand...

I believe I did in the OP.
 
I'm a bit puzzled by this, too. So you're saying that we should eat better, healthier diets. Good idea. What more is there to this?
 
Fozzie Bear said:
If I suggested this to my better half I would get a smack in the mouth and a lecture about how she grew up eating basic/poverty/rubbish food and so doesn't want to go back there as part of some hare-brained social experiment.
Click to expand...


This.

This is exactly my initial response to anything like this - particularly when it is presented by a dick like J O or a mumsy posho.

However, that is also exactly the response we have been conditioned to have. To demand our rights to fill ourselves with calories we don't need. So we do exactly what the corporations want.

Why does food need to be 'delicious'? It's basically fuel ffs. and yet if you mention this you invite scorn and ridicule.
 
OK then, blimey.

I think people should eat better food.

I think I probably do OK, personally - I'm eating a banana right now :cool:.

But I might check out some of her recipes anyway.

None of this will change the situation for disenfranchised people in this country.
 
Could I feed myself and my kids on £10 a week? I fucking wish I could! I might be able to manage it without two very hungry growing kids, who also happen to be fussy about what they eat, yes.

I just had a look through her recipes and some of them sound really nice tbf. The problem is though that when you are shopping for a family you need to get them three meals they like every day....so a meal she says costs 35p...the actual cost to buy all of the ingredients costs £7.50 and some will spoil in a few days if not used. And if you are only spending ten quid a week...well it looks like we are having carrot, cumin and kidney beans burgers in buns for every meal for a few days kids, sorry! Oh and now we have run out after two days...shit. *rings rich parents for help.

And as if to prove my point, my daughter just wandered in to tell me she is hungry, even though half an hour ago she had cereal and 3/4 of an hour before that toast and an apple.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
I'm a bit puzzled by this, too. So you're saying that we should eat better, healthier diets. Good idea. What more is there to this?
Click to expand...


I'm suggesting that eating better, eating cheaper and indeed eating less is
1. (in and of itself) a deeply political and subversive act.
2. an opportunity for even those with the least money to take back some control of their own lives (instead of begrudgingly eating 'poverty food' and dreaming of payday/Giro day feasts)
 
LiamO said:
This.

This is exactly my initial response to anything like this - particularly when it is presented by a dick like J O or a mumsy posho.

However, that is also exactly the response we have been conditioned to have. To demand our rights to fill ourselves with calories we don't need. So we do exactly what the corporations want.

Why does food need to be 'delicious'? It's basically fuel ffs. and yet if you mention this you invite scorn and ridicule.
Click to expand...

I do not need to make most of my meals out of tinned kidney beans because I can afford to make my meals out of more expensive and healthier ingredients.

Food doesn't need to be delicious in the same way that people don't need an inside flush toilet or heating. But life is objectively better if you have those things. Unless you get pleasure out of living like a monk.
 
LiamO said:
I'm suggesting that eating better, eating cheaper and indeed eating less is
1. (in and of itself) a deeply political and subversive act
Click to expand...
No it's not. Or at least it is only in a straightlaced, vegan policeman kind of a way. Should we be giving up drugs and alcohol too, for the sake of politics?

I'm not with you on this one at all, Liam.
 
I've heard that David Cameron has called an emergency meeting of COBRA after an outbreak of subversive behaviour across the UK caused by people being thrifty and taking less pleasure in things. The chief sugar baron, Lord Sugar, has asked for hourly updates.
 
LiamO said:
Why does food need to be 'delicious'? It's basically fuel ffs. and yet if you mention this you invite scorn and ridicule.
Click to expand...

That sounds like some 1940s Soviet polemic - "Onwards through our bland gruel to the workers' victory!". Food is a vital part of the human social and cultural experience. To be denied access to decent sustaining tasty food is an insult, and it's dreadful that so many are so desperate to feed themselves properly.

Can't food be both healthy fuel and delicious? To paraphrase, isn't the point to change society, not to accept its inequalities as a austere badge of misplaced pride?

And aren't you missing other vital points about access to leisure and sports activities, good food shops, time to cook and ability to eat out regularly at non fast food places that enable the rich to eat well and remain at a healthy weight. How many people do you know have subsidised work restaurants or lunch expenses? That's standard for lawyers, accountants, the City, MPs...then they lecture us about popping out to Greggs.
 
LiamO said:
I'm suggesting that eating better, eating cheaper and indeed eating less is
1. (in and of itself) a deeply political and subversive act.
2. an opportunity for even those with the least money to take back some control of their own lives (instead of begrudgingly eating 'poverty food' and dreaming of payday/Giro day feasts)
Click to expand...

Just out on interest, what do you consider poverty food?
 
Clair De Lune said:
Could I feed myself and my kids on £10 a week? I fucking wish I could! I might be able to manage it without two very hungry growing kids, who also happen to be fussy about what they eat, yes.

I just had a look through her recipes and some of them sound really nice tbf. The problem is though that when you are shopping for a family you need to get them three meals they like every day....so a meal she says costs 35p...the actual cost to buy all of the ingredients costs £7.50 and some will spoil in a few days if not used. And if you are only spending ten quid a week...well it looks like we are having carrot, cumin and kidney beans burgers in buns for every meal for a few days kids, sorry! Oh and now we have run out after two days...shit. *rings rich parents for help.

And as if to prove my point, my daughter just wandered in to tell me she is hungry, even though half an hour ago she had cereal and 3/4 of an hour before that toast and an apple.
Click to expand...
She's only feeding herself and a toddler though - I could probably manage food for me and my toddler on £10 a week because he has very cheap tastes, eats next to nothing and would be ecstatic to only have to eat beans on toast, cheesy pasta and apples for the rest of his life. It'd be grim for me though.

I'm sure I read a George Orwell(?) quote recently about miners spending all their money on sugar, white bread and corned beef when they would be better off and healthier spending it on wholemeal bread, oranges and milk for the children, and eating carrots raw to save gas. But concludes that given the choice any normal person would rather have corned beef and sugar than carrots.
 
Thora said:
She's only feeding herself and a toddler though - I could probably manage food for me and my toddler on £10 a week because he has very cheap tastes, eats next to nothing and would be ecstatic to only have to eat beans on toast, cheesy pasta and apples for the rest of his life. It'd be grim for me though.

I'm sure I read a George Orwell(?) quote recently about miners spending all their money on sugar, white bread and corned beef when they would be better off and healthier spending it on wholemeal bread, oranges and milk for the children, and eating carrots raw to save gas. But concludes that given the choice any normal person would rather have corned beef and sugar than carrots.
Click to expand...
Orwell also made the point in Road to Wigan Pier that it was as well that those on welfare were rather wasteful as their welfare payments were supposed to be the absolute minimum needed to survive. This kind of stuff can be used as an excuse to cut benefits even more.
 
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