SIR – Don’t you get sick of people carping on about “Food Banks” etc, because there is no need for anyone to go hungry in our wonderful welfare state?

Although for those on a limited budget there is a pressing need to prioritise spending, so instead of beer, cigs, mobile phones, tattoos, cable TV, lottery tickets or scratch cards, food should be top of the list, but for many sadly isn’t, as celebrity chef Jamie Oliver put it so succinctly, when recently commenting about families living on plastic trays of chips etc yet having a 48in TV set!

I shop mainly at Idle or Greengates, and am constantly amazed at how cheap some food items are, with supermarkets apparently vying with each other on their ‘basic’ range of products.

You may not be able to afford the best or have unlimited choice, but by careful budgeting and slow cooking, can live well on not much money, instead of seeking instant gratification from the microwave or takeaway.

The problem seems to be one of ignorance or inexperience where the shopping and cooking skills of those who can remember food rationing up to the 1950s seem to have been lost to subsequent generations.

D S Boyes, Rodley Lane, Leeds