The Other Half

The television has become such a low priority for me these days that I frequently forget to watch programmes that I had previously thought would be worth viewing. Consequently, I missed the last Vera, forgot about Safe House half way through, and still haven't seen anything of the new Home Fires series.

(image from theguardian.com)

I did manage to watch "How the other half eat" on the on-demand system for Channel 4 on the tablet earlier this week, just because I was feeling nosy as to how they made the programme.  It was an interesting twist that the ones eating all the junk and ready meals were the mega-rich family, spending £300 a week in their local Sainsbury's to feed 6 people, whereas Mrs Average Income was spending a more reasonable £80 in Aldi each week to feed 4 - although I think you would get an awful lot of food for £80 in Aldi and perhaps even she could have spent less if money was an issue.

Mrs Average was making everything from scratch, they were eating balanced meals and eating together at the table; Mrs Rich was more haphazard about it all, and there was a "cupboard of dreams" to which the children had unrestricted access, full of chocolate, sweets, cakes and other general rubbish - and of course, when the families had their rules and food swapped, Mrs Average's children did actually make themselves little piggies in this cupboard whilst Mum was despairing of them ever eating another vegetable, I think.

I found Mr Rich quite snobbish: "beef cobbler is something that one ate at primary school in the seventies" for example.  They turned their noses up at some of the recipes that they were advised to make, and Mrs Rich was in despair at the amount of time she was expected to be in the kitchen.

I watched it as a one-off, and I don't know that it is a series - I don't think I would watch it every week if it was a weekly event.  We all know that there are all sorts of domestic regimes out there, and each family do their own thing ever so slightly differently from the next family in the street.  If you are a long-time reader here, you'll know that we are more like Mrs Average, and I expect that you are too.