Homeless are eating clever

Petrus’s Eat Clever award winners, volunteers and support workers show off their new culinary skills.

The Council's Eat Clever project has put low-fat, high-energy versions of traditional Lancashire dishes on the menu for the homeless and for people getting their lives back on track in drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes.

Poor nutrition and poor food hygiene are usually part of a vicious cycle for the homeless and those in rehabilitation projects.

Councillor Irene Davidson said: “The Eat Clever project has helped to break this cycle by offering training in food hygiene and by teaching people how to prepare, tasty, cheap, nutritious dishes.”

To celebrate the project’s success Petrus, which helps homeless people live more stable lives, hosted an Eat Clever lunch on this week, where seven Petrus service users were presented with their Eat Clever and food safety awareness awards.

Dave Bamford, one of the Petrus award winners, said: “I’ve always eaten out of shops. So for me to get into the kitchen and do something was a big step forward. Then to get a tangible qualification is beyond anything I thought possible.”

Funded by the Government’s Food Standards Agency and run by Rochdale Council’s food safety service the Eat Clever project is one of the few organisations trying to promote healthy eating among the homeless.

Though the project’s funding is coming to an end, homeless services in the borough are now setting up their own schemes to further the Eat Clever project’s ideas.