I suspended my disbelief last night in order to watch the Great British Budget Menu. Sadly, as I watched, I realised I should have kept my disbelief very firmly engaged. What a lost opportunity

I have watched many shows where the menus are so called budget ones, but set at a level far higher than thousands of people living in the UK today would consider a budget. The Frugal Feast at the end was set to a budget of £1 a portion – is that really such a very great challenge? The chefs taking part, James Martin, Richard Corrigan and Angela Hartnett are all very successful and are running restaurants. If they ran their restaurants without knowing to the penny how much a dish costs, and priced it accordingly, they would very soon go bust. So how come not one of the chefs managed to feed the people they were staying with with the budget they were given. Richard didn’t seem to even attempt to shop to the budget he was given. It wasn’t even that bad, £1.66 per person per day. He should have easily been able to feed that family with that amount of money. He just gave up and bought a huge portion of salmon, which made a lovely meal, sure, but people living with very little money can’t just say to hell with it and spend £11.33 on a slab of salmon – they HAVE to find something with the amount of money they have.

I am so frustrated right now. Why didn’t the programme show more of what the people actually ate so the people with influence could see how people are really living.

I’ve just had a very quick look at the recipes the chefs wrote, they said ‘to budget’ but not actually what that budget was. It is apparently £1 a portion. None of the recipes have a cost shown, and so far, I haven’t managed to find the £20 set up larder shopping list. But I will persevere and see if any of the recipes can be used in our blog here, on feed yourself for £1 a day