Teach cooking to tackle obesity, Jamie Oliver tells MPs

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Giving evidence to a parliamentary inquiry into health inequalities, Oliver spoke of an "incredibly profound" health crisis caused by poor nutrition. He called for a cap on the number of fast food outlets on high streets.

Oliver said that while in previous recessions people were able to switch to cheaper foods and still serve up tasty and nutritious meals, Britain was today going into a downturn with the majority of the population unable to make these savings because they cannot cook.

The £650million provided by the Government to improve school dinners was welcome but "nowhere near a dramatic enough amount of money", he told the Commons health committee.

"The health crisis that we are in and what we choose to do in the next 10 years is so incredibly profound," said Oliver. "In this fifth richest country in the world...there is a new poverty that I have never seen before. This isn't about fresh trainers or mobile phones or Sky dishes or plasma TV screens - they've got all that. It is a poverty of being able to nourish their family, in any class. It directly runs with the outrageous obesity that is happening now...and it is getting worse and worse."

Oliver, whose School Dinners and Ministry Of Food TV series have seen him campaign for better food in schools, homes and the workplace, said that lack of knowledge about cooking had an "exponential" impact on the nation's health. "The exponential effect of passing on bad solutions to feeding the family is dramatic," he said. But he added: "I believe that radical change is quite easy. I have witnessed it across the country, across the classes. It is incredibly emotional to see the life of a family changed through nuggets of very small amounts of good information.

"That inspires me to believe that schools, government and the workplace can change people's thoughts and attitudes towards things, certainly in conjunction with controls put on fast food options."