Health champions want to get deprived residents eating their greens by taking fruit and veg directly to their doors.They’ll have to beat the ‘Pizza Express’ delivery man to the door first. Perhaps they’d better buy a high-performance car for the job?
The NHS-sponsored volunteers are targeting two of the most deprived areas in Clacton to turn residents from chip butties to broccoli.
They plan to take the healthy food door-to-door and sell it at cut price.
Sue Felgate, leader for the health trainers, said: “It is not going to be easy, but it is something we would love to see happen. We are really keen to get this going. It is about increasing access to fruit and vegetables in areas that are not very near a supermarket.And we’ll be paying for it, with our taxes.
“It is a bit brought on from Jamie Oliver, and his project to get people cooking and sharing recipes. It is really about getting people interested in food again.”
She said the scheme would see health trainers pro-actively approaching households, and the cheap produce would be backed-up with recipe suggestions and maybe even cooking clubs and tasting sessions.
Yes, this is where the NI contributions are going, not on heart operations and setting wee kiddiewinks’ broken legs, but on paying for harebrained schemes like this one, and the useless, otherwise-unemployable staff to run them.
The van would initially target Jaywick and Pier Ward in central Clacton, areas where poor health is an issue and life expectancy is low compared to nearby districts.So, the residents of Jaywick and Pier Ward are dying early purely because they aren’t eating enough cabbage, are they?
Are you sure about that? There aren’t any other factors?
Ms Felgate said: “Everybody always says to eat healthily is terribly expensive.Really, Ms Felgate?
“Jaywick does not have a supermarket, but it does have a lot of fast food places.
“People have lost their cooking skills and don’t tend to cook for themselves as much as they used to.”
Or is it just that they can’t be bothered, as Leg-Iron pointed out?
Needless to say, this barmy scheme is eagerly lapped up by the people who cling, leech-like, to the state, and those who think the state should provide them a living without them having to lift a finger:
Kevin Colman, chairman of the Pier Ward Interaction Partnership, which represents people in ward, said: “It is a great idea. If it can help, even in a small way, why not? ”Anything else we can do for you, anon? Provide a nurse to spoon it into your gaping maw too, save you having to lift your no doubt flabby arms?
A member of the Jaywick community forum website wrote: “What a great idea. We can no longer afford our five a day and have had to cut back.”
Back in the sixties when I were a kid we had a similar scheme running. It was called a "mobile shop" and sold fruit, veg, sweets and assorted household goods from the back of a Luton van. It wasn't run by the local council, but by a man in a brown grocer coat called Fred - Fred being the man's name was Fred, not the coat.
ReplyDeleteFred's arrival in our road was as popular as the ice cream van due to the fact that us kids could obtain such things as sherbet dips or flying saucers in exchange for a couple of pennies (old pennies) while our mums could get a few pounds of King Edwards without having to lump them back from the High Street in bags.
That was back when mums knew what to do with a sack of spuds!
ReplyDeleteBefore I decided an LVT => CD would be best, I toyed with the idea of providing food deliveries (instead of money) directly to benefit seekers...
ReplyDeleteI can just see this happening though "I wanted chips! What's this white lumpy thing with mud on?"
"Where's the microwave timings, innit?"
ReplyDeleteHow about mobile supermarkets touring the countryside?
ReplyDeleteFrom google
ReplyDeleteMace Supermarket 4 Tudor Parade Jaywick
Broadway Mini-Mart Grocers & Convenience Stores
17, Broadway, Jaywick,
The Stores Grocers & Convenience Stores 9, Broadway, Jaywick,
may be they are all closed?
"How about mobile supermarkets touring the countryside?"
ReplyDeleteI don't think there's that much reliance on fast food in the countryside.
"..may be they are all closed?"
Hmmm, unlikely. Maybe the residents are just not too fond of vegetables?
“What a great idea. We can no longer afford our five a day and have had to cut back.”
ReplyDeleteWhat a whopper. I bet they smoke like chimneys. Anyone who can afford to fill their face with junk food can afford to eat properly. They are pefectly entitled to eat that shit if they want, but I don't want my taxes taken from me to subsidise deliveries of cut price food to their door, when I have to walk to the supermarkets and buy the normal price stuff myself, simply because I am not a lazy fat bastard.
I bet the grocers in Clacton are over the moon about this. State subsidised competition against them. When grocers in Clacton go out of business we can have the same Righteous drones wringing their hands about why there are no grocery shops in Clacton anymore.
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ReplyDeleteAs someone who lives in the general area I am familiar with Jaywick and the Pier Ward. Deprivation in these areas is far more about the people who live there than the facilities, which are better than many villages in the areas.
ReplyDeleteI would bet that those residents who may get a veg handout will fry them up anyway, or sell them or try and smoke them. Anyway, it will do no good and the area will remain blighted as a festering sore on the arsehole of Essex
We would all be better off if they just napalmed the place and started again.
( I had to redo this as I typed far too quickly!)