Latest news with #junkfood
The Sun
10 hours ago
- The Sun
Lucy Letby moans ‘I'm the fattest I've EVER been' after splurging prison job cash on junk food & chocolate, inmates say
SERIAL child killer Lucy Letby has moaned that she's getting too fat in prison after spending more than £50 on crisps and sweets. The former nurse devours junk food and Quality Street chocolates paid for by working three different prison jobs inside HMP Bronzefield. 2 Britain's most prolific child killer is serving 15 whole-life orders. The 35-year-old from Herefordshire was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill seven others while working at the Countess of Chester in 2015 and 2016. One fellow inmate complained to the Mirror that Letby's behaviour is annoying other lags - and she cries to win sympathy from guards. They said that staff are scared of the nurse so "pander" to her and treat her like "a princess". The killer has jobs as a laundry worker, earning £8 a week, a kitchen worker - another £8 a week - and a library worker. A source told the Mirror: "She gets almost £20 a week, which in prison money is a lot. She buys loads, and loads of junk food. She's put on loads of weight, she's got quite fat, you wouldn't recognise her. It's all put on around her face. "She was moaning that she's the fattest she's ever been. She weighs 72 kilos [almost 11 stone 5oz] - she's not fat, but fat for her, you know as she was really, really skinny." It comes after The Sun reported Letby and the stepmother of murdered Sara Sharif have bonded in prison over family card game Uno. Letby and Beinash Batool — who is serving 33 years over ten-year-old Sara's death — spend hours playing the game in their cushy jail unit. The child killers — both inmates with 'enhanced' privileges at HMP Bronzefield, Surrey — also spend time in each other's cells and in the kitchen together. But their love of the Uno game, which sees players try to match cards and yell 'Uno' when they have just one left, has sparked fury among staff and lags. Our source said: 'It's a grim spectacle. They spend ages at the table playing and get really into it. 'People are angry, but staff have to do what they can to keep prisoners happy. 'Letby and Batool started sticking together and have now become quite friendly. 'They are both enhanced prisoners, so they get a lot of freedom and can buy decent food. And they are often in the kitchen, chatting and making cheese toasties. 'The difference between them is that Batool does not discuss her crime, while Letby tells anyone who will listen that she is innocent. 'They both have jobs, with Letby doing cleaning and Batool helping in the library. 'They are also monitored closely by staff as they are at risk of attack. But their lives will stay quite comfortable as long as they behave.' Letby, 35, and Batool, 31, are held on Unit 4 of 527-inmate Bronzefield, which is run by private firm Sodexo. They both have TVs with Freeview channels and a DVD player, along with books and films, which they can order from the library. Others on the unit include Sian Hedges, jailed for life in 2024 for killing 18-month-old son Alfie Phillips. Shamed prison officer Linda de Sousa Abreu, who romped with a lag, was also held there until her release last month. Letby — convicted of the murders of seven babies and attempted murders of seven more while a neonatal nurse — has regular legal meetings as she plans her appeal. Sara's dad, Urfan Sharif, is serving at least 40 years for murder after she was beaten to death at the couple's home in Woking, Surrey.
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
A good spread of food memoirs: from the sanitised to the ‘slutty'
Picky Author : Jimi Famurewa ISBN-13 : 978-1399739542 Publisher : Hodder & Stoughton Guideline Price : £20 The Jackfruit Chronicles Author : Shahnaz Ahsan ISBN-13 : 978-0008683795 Publisher : Harper North Guideline Price : £16.99 Moveable Feasts: Paris in Twenty Meals Author : Chris Newens ISBN-13 : 978-1805224204 Publisher : Profile Books Guideline Price : £18.99 Tart: Misadventures of an Anonymous Chef Author : Slutty Cheff ISBN-13 : 978-1526682697 Publisher : Bloomsbury Guideline Price : £16.99 Care and Feeding Author : Laurie Woolever ISBN-13 : 978-0063327603 Publisher : Ecco Guideline Price : £22 Strong Roots: A Ukrainian Family Story of War, Exile and Hope Author : Olia Hercules ISBN-13 : 978-1526662927 Publisher : Bloomsbury Circus Guideline Price : £20 Early on in Picky, his ode to growing up second-generation British Nigerian and 1990s junk food, restaurant critic Jimi Famurewa unmasks the illusion that is food memoir. 'Working as a food writer,' he writes, 'can have a warping effect on childhood memories ... The past becomes an editable document.' It's provocative but risks spoiling the show. There's masterful writing, as Famurewa rhapsodises about a Twix 'scraped down to a soggy, denuded girder of a shortbread', the 'wincing remnants' of Brannigans crisps. It's refreshing to read an account of a reasonably happy existence – especially when it's of a single-parent son. Picky is also a significant meditation about the 'cultural performance of immigrant life', crucial to understanding the machinations of code-switching that is instinctive to multinational children. He is wonderful at expressing the heightened sensations of childhood, such as the giddiness of travelling to the US as an unaccompanied minor, 'a continent-hopping Paddington Bear of the sky'. His paean to McDonald's enlightened this second-generation immigrant reader why the 'slender, elegant uniformity of McDonald's fries in a pillar-box-red sleeve' held not only me, but my parents, in its sway. Famurewa, whose previous book was the eloquent Settlers, about the British black African experience – is a thoughtful, thorough writer. However, in a memoir the author must be the star, and even though he studied drama at Royal Holloway, Famurewa is reluctant. Out of respect, he never really delves into the people he loves, particularly his mother. Perhaps it's his British reserve coupled with the modesty of a 'Nice Nigerian Boy' but in Famurewa's conscientious refusal to manipulate his story, he and his characters never really take flight. READ MORE Shahnaz Ahsan. Photograph: Tracey Aiston If Famurewa is diffident about showcasing his immigrant family, Shahnaz Ahsan has no qualms about bragging about hers. Her cookbook memoir, The Jackfruit Chronicles, starts with her grandfather Habib, who arrives in Manchester from what is now Bangladesh in 1953 and starts a family that thrives despite Enoch Powell, Thatcher-era racism and post-9/11 anti-Muslim sentiment. British-Bangladeshis such as Habib created what we know as the 'Indian curry house', where one pot of house gravy is tailored into different dishes with proteins, vegetables and spices. Jackfruit's 'Benglish' recipes offer an intriguing glimpse of early immigrant adaptation: cheese and Patak pickle pinwheels, crumpets swapped for the flatbread chitoi pitha. Unfortunately, Ahsan's style is prone to cliched platitudes that emphasise the wonderfulness of a clan for whom 'food is the love language which we share'. 'Thank you,' she writes, 'to Aneesa and all the other aunties who pass on their wisdom both in and out of the kitchen.' Ahsan grew up on Enid Blyton, and Winona Ryder's Little Women, and it shows in her relentlessly heartwarming prose. Her characters lack nuance; her jokes fall flat. There's a touch of preachiness to Ahsan, who as a teenager would hide 'lads' mags' such as Zoo (where Jimi Famuwera once worked) 'in the belief that if we could, somehow, limit the availability of this media, women would actually be regarded with a modicum of respect one day'. In some families there is a refrain: Someone should write about how marvellous we are. The Jackfruit Chronicles is exactly the kind of saga that your grandma would bless. Food writer Olia Hercules , from London, must stand by as the landscape and people of her idyllic Ukrainian childhood are demolished. Her parents' home, built 'to retire in, to grow weathered in, alongside the creased riverbank that stretches below' is occupied by the Russian military. However, as she realises in Strong Roots, the war opens up another past, one whose wounds had been covered over during more halcyon days. 'When I was growing up, I never questioned why we talked about certain things in half-whispers,' she writes. 'My grandparents' memories were 'mined' and had to be trodden on lightly for a long time.' The irony is that the tales that Hercules gathers – horrifying, hilarious – might have been discarded were it not for the current terror. She's not alone; hordes of Ukrainians, since the war began, have been scrambling to preserve their heritage. However, such stories come with a cost, as Hercules realises when she prods her grandmother Vera for what is ancient and unendurable. '(F)rom out of her stiff body came a stiff voice ... I understood that her stiffness was a barrier, a barrier against the past, perhaps to shield her from things that she might have never discussed before.' There are some overripe moments. (For example: 'A list of occasions when I see my ancestors' smiles' that includes 'my children's eyes'.) However, Hercules knows how to mix lushness with crisp, unyielding fact; what's more, instead of explaining her characters, she describes them. Her grandmother Vera excitedly gets ready for a 'foto sessiya' with a crinoline blouse and 'huge lacquered hair'. 'I need you to be natural, grandma!' Hercules shrieks, and makes her change. The people in Hercules's book have been maturing inside her for a lifetime, gathering richness. They can be stubborn, quick to anger and vain; she conveys the way they talk over each other, and how their punchlines falter. Hercules's people may be strong, but she has also rendered them so vividly so that they will endure. They are blood, breath and bone – shut your eyes and they resound with exuberant cacophony. Slutty Cheff Slutty Cheff , the anonymous author of Tart, is a few years shy of 30. As her name suggests, she's a horny workaholic in an esteemed London restaurant, and bangs many a dish, on and off the line. She's white, socially privileged and loves her parents; she's at the sweet spot in life when things are on the cusp. In short, you'd hate her if she weren't so winningly self-deprecating. Tart is not strict memoir. As Slutty told British Vogue, 'Stories are based on my stories, and stories of my chef friends,' which makes it all the more entertaining, an updated 18th-century picaresque where the rogue hero is a woman 'who will feed your desire, like a Tesco meal deal'. Plus, although Tart has plenty of fat-and-sugar stoked steam, its author knows that the cardinal rule for both culinary and erotic writing is to stay crisp and dry. She observes, 'The other reason why I don't want people to know about my lover is far more important than gender politics: the man I'm sleeping with has a topknot.' There are darker aspects of Tart, like panic attacks and a sleazy co-worker, and Slutty confesses, 'Whenever I lose the sense of who I am or what I do, or I spin into disassociation or fall into a sense of depression I feel scared and worry that I'll never be happy again. There are two things in my life that are a constant reminder that pleasure exists: food and sex.' Anthony Bourdain. Photograph: Alex Welsh/The New York Times The kitchen, touted by many as an artistic vocation, can also be a form of self-medication, its mania an addictive panacea for people too terrified to stop. Laurie Woolever is 22 when Care and Feeding begins. She has a lot in common with Slutty, except instead of present-day London, she lives in 1996 New York. A blond Ivy League graduate who can cook and write, she will become assistant to the two chefs synonymous with that era's culinary machismo – the not-yet #MeToo'ed, evangelist of Italian cuisine Mario Batali, and Kitchen Confidential author Anthony Bourdain. Much as in Tart, what unfolds is a heady rush of alcohol, food, dirty sex and high-calibre work, proving that whoever said drink and drugs were counterproductive was wrong. Except. Let's just say that we hope Slutty doesn't suffer like Woolever in 20 years. This raw, scalding book is about what happens when one's career is ascendant while one's personal life unravels. Some events are spectacularly badly timed; shortly after Woolever gets sober, her husband leaves her and Bourdain kills himself. Woolever is briskly inventive, like when she describes a lamb tongue's salad as 'intriguing because of the truffles and provocative because of the tongue'. She's deadpan about Ferran Adria, pink limousines and a writer who 'had a revolting Humbert Humbert-ish way with wine descriptors ... bottles were 'sexy babies' and 'flirtatious teens'. Still, an attraction of the book is the two outsized men with whom she was affiliated, and on this Woolever delivers, sometimes reconfiguring their signature swaggers in unexpected ways. About Batali (who concluded a written apology about his misconduct with a recipe for cinnamon rolls) she's gentle – he's an erudite, generous monster who's a surprisingly astute observer of her spiralling behaviour. Regarding Bourdain, whose kindness she paints in many lights, Woolever gives him a remarkable send-off. 'He had,' she states, 'made the colossally stupid, but somehow wholly plausible decision to die of a broken heart.' If only she wasn't so excruciatingly hard on herself. Woolever details every embarrassing incident in her life, and reprints her journal extracts and emails with every blemish – they're broken and sloppy, the sort of thing a vainer writer would want permanently erased. However, much of Care and Feeding makes you crave reckless behaviour, such as that 'woozy punch-in-the-face feeling' of a gin-and-tonic at a Sri Lanka bar. You can't forget the brilliant accomplishments – in kitchens and elsewhere – that were fuelled by the admittedly toxic adrenaline of that time. Compare Woolever and Slutty to the more virtuous recollections of Famurewa, Ahsan, and Hercules; consider that there won't be a Batali autobiography any time soon, and it seems that, at least for now, in the world of food memoir, it will still be the white girls who have the most fun. Chris Newens. Photograph: Sabine Dundure In Moveable Feasts , Chris Newens seeks, in each of Paris's arrondissements, a dish that encapsulates something of the city's soul. Methodical and charming, Newens starts his research the old-fashioned way, by talking to strangers, waylaying Sri Lankan plongeurs on a sleeper train and sniffy haute bourgeoises after church. In the world, Paris is the city most famously defined by its outsiders. As his title suggests, Newens's teenage hero was Ernest Hemingway, and he is caught between the schoolboy fancies that lured him there, and the mercurial, multinational Paris that keeps him. His city hovers between unconventional and stereotype, with diaspora dishes that are also predictably Parisian (bahn-mi in the 13th), croissants and Congolese-style malangwa fish. As a white English man with fluent French, Newens can navigate the homeless in the Bois des Vincennes and a 1993 Saint-Émilion with equanimity. More than Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, Newens recalls another culinary Paris chestnut, George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London. Like Orwell, Newens is at his best when he is observing individuals where they work, like the employees at the smoothly functioning colossus of decent-priced dining, Bouillon République. Many memoirs touch on home, that mysterious place where you belong. A Paris expat like Newens, however, decides to settle in a place where he will forever be foreign. It's not a choice all Paris immigrants make. For the Sri Lankan waiter at La Fontaine de Mars or the Peruvian-American student at the Cordon Bleu, there's a yearning for geographical and emotional permanence, to become an indelible part of the city's history. It is our sincere, if somewhat naive, hope that they will.
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Fresh support for ‘ham sandwich' ad ban
A leading health body has thrown its full support behind South Australia's controversial move to ban junk food ads on public transport assets, saying it's time to 'draw a line in the sand' and protect Aussie kids from unhealthy marketing. Food for Health Alliance executive manager Jane Martin, in a statement released to NewsWire, said the ban, which is now in effect, would influence diets and help pull down the 'wallpaper' of junk food ads. 'Current food marketing rules in Australia are largely voluntary and controlled by industry itself,' she said. 'They're ineffective, inconsistent and full of loopholes. 'As a result, junk food ads bombard kids everywhere they go – on social media, on billboards, on public transport, at sports games. 'It is the wallpaper in our children's lives and it shapes what kids want, what they pester their parents for and, ultimately, what they eat.' The ban prohibits a range of junk food items from being displayed on Adelaide's buses, trains and trams, including processed meats like ham. Chocolate, lollies, confectionary, desserts, ice creams, soft drinks and chips are all banned from display alongside processed meats, with the measure designed to limit children's exposure to unhealthy food and drink advertising. The ban ignited controversy in the months before its July 1 introduction, with the Australian Association of National Advertisers pushing hard against what it called a 'blanket ban'. 'As it stands, this policy bans all processed meats, which means a simple ham salad sandwich can't be advertised.' AANA chief executive Josh Faulks said in May. 'This simply doesn't make sense and the government should be making evidence-based decisions, not blanket bans that don't align with nutritional science.' The AANA confirmed with NewsWire it opposed all advertising bans for food and beverages. Health Minister Chris Picton, speaking in May, said the AANA was 'scaremongering' and 'providing misinformation about this commonsense policy'. 'It is not up to advertising industry lobbyists to tell us what can be displayed on our public transport assets,' he said. Some 63 per cent of adults and 35 per cent of children across South Australia are overweight or obese, government figures show. On Tuesday, Ms Martin said the government had made a 'smart and necessary step' that was backed by evidence. 'After similar restrictions were introduced by Transport for London, expected household purchases of unhealthy food and drinks dropped by more than 1000 calories per week,' she said. 'Other cities like Canberra, Amsterdam and New York have also adopted similar policies. 'The processed food and advertising industries have had a long, profitable run. 'But now it's time we draw a line and stop letting them promote their unhealthy products to kids on their daily commute.' She warned Australia was already lagging behind international best practice in protecting children from 'unhealthy food marketing'. 'Our kids are paying the price,' she said. 'Over a third of Australian children's daily energy intake now comes from unhealthy food and drinks, more than 40 per cent for teenagers. 'Unhealthy diets are placing children at higher risk of being above a healthy weight in adulthood and from developing type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease or 13 cancers later in life.'
News.com.au
15-07-2025
- Health
- News.com.au
Food for Health Alliance backs controversial South Australian ban on junk food ads
A leading health body has thrown its full support behind South Australia's controversial move to ban junk food ads on public transport assets, saying it's time to 'draw a line in the sand' and protect Aussie kids from unhealthy marketing. Food for Health Alliance executive manager Jane Martin, in a statement released to NewsWire, said the ban, which is now in effect, would influence diets and help pull down the 'wallpaper' of junk food ads. 'Current food marketing rules in Australia are largely voluntary and controlled by industry itself,' she said. 'They're ineffective, inconsistent and full of loopholes. 'As a result, junk food ads bombard kids everywhere they go – on social media, on billboards, on public transport, at sports games. 'It is the wallpaper in our children's lives and it shapes what kids want, what they pester their parents for and, ultimately, what they eat.' The ban prohibits a range of junk food items from being displayed on Adelaide's buses, trains and trams, including processed meats like ham. Chocolate, lollies, confectionary, desserts, ice creams, soft drinks and chips are all banned from display alongside processed meats, with the measure designed to limit children's exposure to unhealthy food and drink advertising. The ban ignited controversy in the months before its July 1 introduction, with the Australian Association of National Advertisers pushing hard against what it called a 'blanket ban'. 'As it stands, this policy bans all processed meats, which means a simple ham salad sandwich can't be advertised.' AANA chief executive Josh Faulks said in May. 'This simply doesn't make sense and the government should be making evidence-based decisions, not blanket bans that don't align with nutritional science.' The AANA confirmed with NewsWire it opposed all advertising bans for food and beverages. Health Minister Chris Picton, speaking in May, said the AANA was 'scaremongering' and 'providing misinformation about this commonsense policy'. 'It is not up to advertising industry lobbyists to tell us what can be displayed on our public transport assets,' he said. Some 63 per cent of adults and 35 per cent of children across South Australia are overweight or obese, government figures show. On Tuesday, Ms Martin said the government had made a 'smart and necessary step' that was backed by evidence. 'After similar restrictions were introduced by Transport for London, expected household purchases of unhealthy food and drinks dropped by more than 1000 calories per week,' she said. 'Other cities like Canberra, Amsterdam and New York have also adopted similar policies. 'The processed food and advertising industries have had a long, profitable run. 'But now it's time we draw a line and stop letting them promote their unhealthy products to kids on their daily commute.' She warned Australia was already lagging behind international best practice in protecting children from 'unhealthy food marketing'. 'Our kids are paying the price,' she said. 'Over a third of Australian children's daily energy intake now comes from unhealthy food and drinks, more than 40 per cent for teenagers. 'Unhealthy diets are placing children at higher risk of being above a healthy weight in adulthood and from developing type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease or 13 cancers later in life.'
Irish Times
10-07-2025
- Health
- Irish Times
Companies selling ‘junk food' in Ireland named in investigation into sponsorship deals in sports
Several 'junk food' companies operating in Ireland have been named in an investigation into sponsorship deals in professional sports published by the British Medical Journal on Wednesday. The finding comes amid growing concerns about junk food's impact on public health , particularly on children. The investigation found 95 deals between 'junk food' companies and sporting stars, teams or official governing bodies in the UK . The brands include Cadbury, Kellogg's , Coca Cola , Pepsi, Just Eat, Red Bull, and Monster Energy. 'Junk food sponsorship is everywhere – it is pernicious and ubiquitous', says Francis Finucane, consultant endocrinologist at Galway University Hospitals. Kellogg's has been sponsoring the GAA Cúl Camps for the past 14 years. Just Eat sponsors the Uefa women's Euro 2025 league and Leinster Rugby. The Irish national women's soccer team have been sponsored by Cadbury since 2021. Irish rugby is sponsored by Goodfellas, a frozen-pizza company. The report 'highlights the scale and extent of an important public health problem. Sports sponsorship in the EU is a €23 billion market, and junk food manufacturers see it as an important way of raising awareness of their products,' says Dr Finucane. Unhealthy food products have a 'health halo effect' when used in sports sponsorship, according to research. 'These players are in absolute peak physical condition and they are unfortunately promoting products that just do not generally feature in athletes' diets,' says Robin Ireland at Glasgow University's school of health and wellbeing. This is because the quality of the fuel in junk food is poor, which impacts energy and ability to perform, explains Daniel Murphy, a dietitian and owner of Apex Nutrition in Co Cork. Red Bull and Monster Energy are also sponsors in the Irish sports industry, with the former sponsoring Olympic gymnast Rhys McClenaghan and the latter partnering with surfer Gearoid McDaid and the Straight Blast MMA Gym. Mr Ireland says marketers are using tobacco-style tactics in sport to encourage young people to consume energy drinks. 'You want to encourage young consumers – because if you encourage young consumers you may have them for life.' [ Junk food's marketing revolution has sparked 'staggering changes' in Irish children's health Opens in new window ] But Dr Finucane notes the smoking ban is also a route to dealing with ultra-processed food. 'We need to emulate the proportionality and ambition of the smoking ban, with taxation and meaningful restrictions on marketing and advertising. It is important for politicians and legislators as well as public health actors to understand these 'commercial determinants of health'.' Dr Francis Finucane, consultant endocrinologist at Galway University Hospitals. Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy Experts also advise educating young people about nutrition. 'The younger that people are exposed to these foods, the more it will affect them growing up,' Mr Murphy says. Rules introduced by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of Ireland in 2021 prevent companies from advertising products with high fat, sugar or salt content through platforms where the majority of the audience is under 15 years old. The ASA did not deem any complaints from members of the public in 2024 about the advertising of food and drink to children to be in breach of its code. Kellogg's says its partnership with the GAA Cúl Camps is fully compliant with all regulatory requirements. The other companies mentioned did not respond to a request for comment on how they work within the 2021 rules.
