Janet Street-Porter: Charles is cashing in on our food snobbery

Funny how food and diet, not politics, is the subject everyone from royalty downwards has an opinion about. Middle-class people spend hours talking about carbs, phoning up telly shows and emailing one another about super foods, fat and fibre. People who have zero academic qualifications, not a GCSE to their name, seem able to answer complex questions about calorific content, low fat burners, and GI indices. Consequently not a day passes without dubious science filling the press in order to fulfil this need for "news" about food.

Paradoxically, we don't even lavish any care on it's preparation. Sales of cookery books boom - but now we spend just 14 minutes and 27 seconds cooking dinner (or reheating something in a packet more like) compared to half an hour 20 years ago.

A couple of weeks ago watercress and chocolate were saluted for their beneficial qualities. This week women seeking to get pregnant are urged to eat up to two servings of full-fat dairy produce every day, while another bunch of scientists reckon that anyone who supplements their diet with antioxidants, including vitamins A and E, is actually in danger of shortening their life.

Prince Charles rails against McDonalds, and poor eight-year-old Connor McCreadie, who weigh 14 stone, has temporarily escaped being taken into care for eating too much. There are so many things that Prince Charles could lend his support to - like establishing a fund to encourage young mums to train as school dinner ladies, like donating time at the factories that make his Duchy Original food ranges to employ young people, to engage them with the realities of food preparation and catering. But, hey, why not take a pop at Big Macs? The main thing to remember about Duchy Originals, is that the products are expensive. They are what the middle classes buy themselves as rewards.

For Connor's mother, Nicola, that isn't an option. She lives in a council house in North Tyneside, and I don't imagine that the Prince's Duchy dry cured bacon, oaten biscuits or fine pork sausages are available, or even affordable in her neighbourhood.

We now use food as a way of delineating class - and Prince Charles condemned a product containing fewer calories, saturated fat and salt than his own Cornish pasties. He's made a huge success out of cashing in on food snobbery, embellishing packets with his royal crest, just as Tesco slaps the words "Finest" over their premium range. It says to anyone who eats stuff from ranges labelled "basic" that they are sad, deprived bastards who can't afford the very best.

I absolutely loathe anything in a supermarket marked New, Improved, The Best, or Premium because it reinforces the notion that anyone with a load of plain wrappers in their trolley is a second-class citizen. Superfoods are a load of old cobblers dreamt up by the middle classes to keep poor people in their place. They can never afford blueberries at £2.99 a mini punnet, pomegranate seeds at a couple of quid a mouthful, baby spinach or raspberries. No wonder Connor's mum has more or less given up the fight to get her son to eat anything other than crisps, chips or toast. How does she make nutritious meals that are as appealing as a Big Mac if she can't afford the raw ingredients?

One thing's for sure - the minute a new 'super' food is designated, supermarkets double it's price, and we lemmings rush to purchase it in order to pursue our dream of eternal youth.

An oasis in the West End

The revival of the French farce Boeing Boeing, starring Roger Allam as the architect who is bonking three air hostesses at the same time, and Mark Rylance as his naïve school friend Robert, has rightly received rave reviews. Our delight comes from the extraordinarily dazzling performances from all concerned, rather than any cutting-edge content. So I was surprised to see a dour youngish man wearing a bizarre tweed trilby hat in the foyer, accompanied by a blonde not dissimilar to Tamzin Outhwaite, who plays Gloria from Pan Am on stage. The couple turned out to be Liam Gallagher and his partner Nicole Appleton from All Saints. Much to Liam's chagrin, this thoroughly middle-class audience had no idea who he was - he could have left the headgear at home.

* Last Sunday, I saw Rufus Wainwright perform his captivating tribute show to Judy Garland at the London Palladium. You've got to hand it to the fellow - he's certainly got chutzpah, and what he might lack in vocal range he makes up for in confidence and charisma.

The only grim moment occurred when Judy's daughter, Lorna Luft, hove into view wearing a dress that resembled a cast-iron black corset, with frosted hair set in a Maggie Thatcher-style helmet. Her vocal delivery would have been more appropriate for the pub near my former home in Limehouse, East London. Lorna seemed hopelessly out of place, belting out a couple of songs with all the charm of a steam roller. Rufus, by contrast, seemed self-effacing (for once) and as a result, had the crowd completely on his side. A triumph.