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Daily Record
Daily Record
Entertainment
Siobhan Macdonald

James Martin calls for 'horrendous' common cooking ingredient to be banned

James Martin has taken aim at one cooking ingredient he claims is 'horrendous' and 'should be banned'.

The celebrity chef, who has championed the benefits of full fat milk, cream and butter, has claimed that margarine should be banned. The TV cook reckons the 'plastic-like' food should be axed from shops as people aren't aware of the 'dreadful' ingredients.

He said: "Margarine should be banned. It's dreadful, dreadful stuff, it's two elements away from plastic, it's horrendous stuff. It's the ready-made food, it's the packet food, the hidden salt, hidden fat. That's the problem in this country."

He explained: “I’m a farmer’s kid. We’ve always had full-fat milk, butter, and cream. And that’s what we had. There wasn’t such a thing as semi-skimmed milk in our house.

“That’s the problem in this country. It's not the butter in a butter block or butter you put on your toast."

James Martin is best known for his Saturday Morning show on ITV (Getty Images)

"It's the fact that not as many people cook in the UK as they do in France or Italy or Spain," reports The Sunday Post. “I’d have buttered white sliced bread and mashed-up banana with a Cadbury Flake on it, press it down, wrap it in cling film.

“Then you get to lunchtime, and it would sort of look – when it was out the cling film – almost like a tennis ball. It would be all congealed together. But you managed to eat it. Nobody wanted to swap with me, but it was proper.”

James was the face of BBC 's Saturday Kitchen 2006 for 10 years on before sensationally quitting to move to ITV. Since then, James has hosted Saturday Morning since 2017 and celebrated its 200th episode in May 2022.

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