Has Channel 4's Big Food Fight season of programmes from Jamie, Hugh, Gordon et al, whetted your appetite for more or have you been left with a bad taste in your mouth?
The main debates on The TV Show this month (now available on 4oD, see The TV Show homepage):
Topic A) The Big Food Fight - Has Channel 4 succeeded in changing the way you think about food or does seeing Jamie slaughtering chickens in Jamie's Fowl Dinners turn your stomach? - Did Hugh need to set up his own intensive chicken farm to prove his point in Hugh's Chicken Run? - Let us know what you think to the second week’s fair: Fast Food Junkies Go Native (15 Jan, 9pm), Jamie's Eat to Save Your Life (16 Jan, 10pm), It's Not My Fault I'm Fat (17 Jan, 9pm) and Gordon Ramsay: Cookalong Live (18 Jan, 9pm).
Just added to the The TV Show website [17-01-08]: Hugh's Chicken Run and Jamie's Fowl Dinners commissioning editors both share their thoughts on the programmes that have got the forums buzzing.
Topic B) Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack. - The smash-hit reality show Big Brother received more complaints in 2007 than all other Channel 4 shows put together and now it is back. - Are you ecstatic or exasperated to see it return? How does the latest incarnation Big Brother Celebrity Hijack compare to its forefathers? And what do you think to it being on E4?
The debates continue on The TV Show website. Also check out Forum Buzz to see what’s been cooking up a storm online.
Everyone at The TV Show would like to thank all of you who contributed.
Hmmmm. Important issues all of them. I think they issue that the nation loses sleep over is whether [insert generic shallow bints name here] with make out with [insert randon name of brainless moron with six pack*]. We wait with baited breath!
*riverghost may be bitter about his lack of six pack
*riverghost may be bitter about his lack of six pack[/QUOTE]
Please tell me you didnt buy own brand lager...
One can only hope the viewing public sits up and takes notice of hugh enough to voice outcry loud enough for the supermarkets to take notice & decide to do something about it.
the food fight programmes are a good topic and will most probably be talk about quite a bit. its not just channel 4 showing these really graphic programmes this week bbc3 have a seriously disturbing programme called kill it cook it eat it which should be check out too.
I think the adverts were completely off kilter to be honest. It's only through reading on here that I know what's going on in that it's a series of foodie programmes and not, as I was actually looking forward to, an adventure weekend of skills and tasks with Hugh, Jamie and Gordon competing against each other.
*It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them. -- Pierre De Beaumarchais
I'm learning alot from these food programmes. some things i already knew and some things i didn't. I like to see the reality of situations and hopefully we will all wake up to whats going on with food.
Originally posted by queenstomper: I think the adverts were completely off kilter to be honest. It's only through reading on here that I know what's going on in that it's a series of foodie programmes and not, as I was actually looking forward to, an adventure weekend of skills and tasks with Hugh, Jamie and Gordon competing against each other.
I thought they were very clever. I would have got people to watch that wouldn't have in the first place. Admittedly the ad's were completely misleading, but that seems to be the trend these days.
The shows were great & I hope a lot of people sat up & took notice. I was aware of the chicken welfare etc, but I was completely unaware that I was in the minority in eating free range eggs & chicken. Another thing I was unaware of was that Tesco's Willow farm individually wrapped chicken breasts were not free range, they are just RSPCA standards. The packaging makes them look free range & they are in the free range section, but as I found out from Jamie last night they are not.
The shows have caused one problem though, it took me 3 trips to the supermarket this week before i could get my free range chicken. I would say a number of people have switched from basic whole chicken to free range for this weekend at least, but unfortunately my local supermarket didn't predict it, so they were out of stock everytime I went in. i just hope the people who have switched have switched for good & don't switch back once Jamie & Hugh are off our screens.
Originally posted by queenstomper: I think the adverts were completely off kilter to be honest. It's only through reading on here that I know what's going on in that it's a series of foodie programmes and not, as I was actually looking forward to, an adventure weekend of skills and tasks with Hugh, Jamie and Gordon competing against each other.
Yeah the ad was indeed misleading. I first taught they were on a wildlife "cum" adventure trip where they had to showcase thier cooking skills and leave like Ray Mears for a week! Maybe that was thier intention. Anywho my mind has already been made up.
I think it was meant to be misleading. I'm guessing the idea was to get people to watch the programmes what would normally turn their nose up it this sort of thing. I thought it was quite a clever idea.
Originally posted by Angela1981: The shows were great & I hope a lot of people sat up & took notice. I was aware of the chicken welfare etc, but I was completely unaware that I was in the minority in eating free range eggs & chicken. Another thing I was unaware of was that Tesco's Willow farm individually wrapped chicken breasts were not free range, they are just RSPCA standards. The packaging makes them look free range & they are in the free range section, but as I found out from Jamie last night they are not.
The shows have caused one problem though, it took me 3 trips to the supermarket this week before i could get my free range chicken. I would say a number of people have switched from basic whole chicken to free range for this weekend at least, but unfortunately my local supermarket didn't predict it, so they were out of stock everytime I went in. i just hope the people who have switched have switched for good & don't switch back once Jamie & Hugh are off our screens.
I had to pop into Tesco for a work related thing (I normally don't use supermarkets) and I noticed just that. The labels were raelly misleading. I did notice that M&S have jumped right on the bandwagon and have 2 packets of chicked leg and shoulder joints for three quid which is quite a bargain.
Is that all such a fantastic series of programs is really worth to C4. A massive waste of resources & costs that could have been put to better use to further educate on the matters the programs have highlighted.
Thanks for a great insight into how animals are reared. But why do they taste so different. Perhaps a show on the ingredients on animal feed will enlighten more viewers / shoppers
I would just like to say that I work for Tesco and I was working this afternoon. Today we sold out of the freen range chickens which is very unusual for us in fact the whole week our sales of free range chickens has increased. We actrually had to reduce some of the bog standard chickens in our store yesterday as they were not selling. This again is highly unusual. I just hope that the public support this long term and it is not a phase that everyone will be going through.
Originally posted by BeckMcB: I would just like to say that I work for Tesco and I was working this afternoon. Today we sold out of the freen range chickens which is very unusual for us in fact the whole week our sales of free range chickens has increased. We actrually had to reduce some of the bog standard chickens in our store yesterday as they were not selling. This again is highly unusual. I just hope that the public support this long term and it is not a phase that everyone will be going through.
It's good that the free range chickens are selling well, hopefully consumer choice will dictate to the supermarkets that we don't want the cheaper chickens any more.
However, as they still have them and are having to reduce them as they now have a surplus, people have to resist the temptation. Easier said than done, cos some people do have a strict budget to keep to, and by saving a pound or two, they can afford to get other essentials instead, bread, milk, eggs..
Way I see it, if we can keep going for free range chickens, the supermarkets will eventually stop selling them, go free range, but then, we'll have the situation all over again where the supermarkets pressurise the farmers to keep costs down.
These programs (Big Food Fight) are proper reality shows that actually can make a positive difference to individual lives and to society as a whole because individual people are societies building blocks. The sooner we get rid of BB and other junk masquerading as reality the better…
I’d love to see one of these shows on bottled water which IMO is ridiculously over priced and delivers absolutely no advantages what so ever over tap water that is filtered through a jug you can get from Robert Dyas for a couple of quid.
Thanks for all your comments on The TV Show debates. Positive or negative, they are appreciated. And thanks to all of you who contributed to the programme, from everyone at The TV Show.
You may be interested to hear the thoughts of the C4 commissioning editors for both Hugh's Chicken Run and Jamie's Fowl Dinners, just posted on The TV Show website.
It sounds like they’re already cooking up a follow up. What do you think they will find when they revisit the campaign later in the year?
Keep us updated if you see changes long-term in your supermarket – especially those of you, like BeckMcB, who work there.
Durrie - Do I recall one of the water companies comparing their tap water – favourably – with bottled water in terms of minerals etc? I have passed your idea on.
Queenstomper - Shame you were disappointed to find that that the Big Food Fight was about food, rather than the chef’s pitting themselves against each other in outdoor challenges – that could have been entertaining. Who do you think would win?
We featured some of the many forum debates on food in Forum Buzz, The TV Shows irregular round-up of forums.
Apart from the numerous food discussions, we also picked out threads on Time Team; Lost; Chris Langham on Shrink Rap; Deal or no Deal; multiculturalism; and global warming.
We’re bound to have missed a few good threads, so please keep us updated here when you find an interesting, critical or amusing debate about C4 programmes on our great-discussion-spotters thread.
Cooka long live programme is billed as part of the Big Food Fight and Hugh and Jamie have gone to such lengths to try to get us eating good quality but relativly easy food and educate us on the problems in food production, why oh why does Gordon think that scallops and sirloin steak are the normal fare of the great british public. I know we can have a treat sometimes but in my humble opinion the problem with obesity and bad eating habits of people is we have lost the ability to cook simple quick cheap meals for the family with good ingredients . I do not think that this menu (hoever interesting to the people who are interested in food) will help people to start cooking and briniging the family together.Nice try Gordon but I think you are barking up the wrong tree here. Also come to South Wales and try to locate the type of scallops you mention I would have to drive 40 miles to source them, and thats if they were in that day, there are plenty of other good seasonal ingredients available!!!
I have really enjoyed the programmes so far and I have changed my purchasing habits recently. However on a visit to my local Co-op, there shelves are full of the misleading labeled chicken that Hugh talked about, and they were going to change it, it is also on a special offer at the moment as well. Perhaps they are just getting rid of the stock, who knows, it would be interesting to know?
Just a thought (and sorry for buggering off for a while). So this Ramsey programme is going ahead tonight as part of the Food Fight series. So what's the bet it gets released of C4 DVD and not a penny from it goes to the awareness it's meant to be raising?
Saw the "eat to save your life" thing last night. The trouble for me was there was enough stuff showing up on my "pseudoscience radar" (eg red wine is good for you, eat more antioxidant rich food) that it makes me doubt the rest of it. Do tomatoes reduce risk of cancer? Who knows? If you take five years worth of something in one lump and it looks like a lot, what of it? This is a shame, as I think the basic message about salt, fat, sugar etc is probably a good one. The stuff about how the food we can buy has changed was also very intersting.
