YOU are probably sick of hearing about Jamie Oliver. I know I am. Whether it’s lecturing women on breastfeeding or shaming low-income families for owning flat-screen TVs, Jamie has cut his campaigning teeth on being holier than thou and telling us all what we are doing wrong.

His latest came during a meeting with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, where he lobbied for a ban on two-for-one pizzas. Perhaps, as more details of the proposal emerge, I’ll be convinced. But on the face of it, it seems a blunt instrument to tackle the obesity crisis. Nicola Sturgeon has said that the media representation of the policy has been over-simplified, and the aim is to discourage over-consumption of certain foods, rather than making the weekly shop costlier.

And nor should it be. The low price of certain foods isn’t the main driver of obesity. What irks me – and I accept that my irritation may be heightened because Oliver is the messenger – is the idea that food is in itself dirty, bad or unhealthy. In part, this is down to our relatively recent cultural obsession with “clean” eating. Where (not withstanding those with allergies) wheat is bad, butter is bad, sugar is the devil, and “processed” foods are a sign of indiscipline.

I love food. When I was growing up, my mum – in between working as a carer and a cleaner – would create the most wonderful meals. I have no idea if I got my five a day, or what the salt or fat content was of the food me and my five siblings consumed. Big pots of bubbling stew, golden roast potatoes, mince, turnip, spaghetti bolognaise and homemade soup. It was food to fill hungry bellies and to steal spoonfuls of before it was served. It was food to have seconds and thirds of.

Skills are handed down through generations. In our family, we cook. But we are universally useless at many other things. My Auntie Tricia (Marwick) reminded me of this on Twitter the other day. None of us can sew. My mum can’t sew, my aunties can’t sew, I can’t and so my daughter won’t be able to either, unless she teaches herself.

We sometimes forget this when we lament the decline in people eating home-cooked meals. Cooking isn’t something that everybody learns how to do. Faced with the pressures of making ends meet, working till we drop and watching our political class lurch from disaster to destruction, is it any wonder that families don’t have the time to learn a whole new skill in their adulthood?

All my siblings can cook. My mum is the go-to for advice, though as we’ve got older we eat differently and try out new recipes. My big brother makes a brilliant Thai curry. I bake – with varying success – where my mum doesn’t. My sister has been cooking “fancy” breakfasts all week. She recently sent me a photo of a (very millennial-looking) garlic and chilli avocado on sourdough with rosemary roasted plum tomatoes. The baby of our family – my 21-year-old brother – made Christmas dinner this year.

To me, cooking is almost meditative. It’s something I do for pleasure; taking enjoyment from the sensory indulgence.

But I don’t create meals under the conditions my mum did. I only have one child, and have time to luxuriate over new recipes with exotic ingredients. Older, working-class mums, so often disregarded and disparaged for how they feed their children, have faced challenges that I doubt their critics could cope with.

While I took it for granted at the time, I’m incredibly grateful to my mum for inspiring a love of cooking and eating in me – at a time where the sheer organisation of a family of our size must have been exhausting.

Food is a joy. A love and appreciation of food – and cooking – is surely a better way of encouraging change than a saturated-fat tax.

I am hopeful that home economics has changed in the years since I was at school. Otherwise, in lieu of a parent who could teach me to cook, I’d have reached adulthood knowing how to make rock buns, rice crispy cakes ... and not much else. Access to ingredients is vital too – telling people to eat fresh fruit and veg isn’t much help if they can’t drive, can’t afford delivery costs, and the nearest supermarket is a long bus ride away.

Let’s have the debate on tackling obesity, and let’s listen closely to the proposals the First Minister will outline in the coming weeks. But I hope, in amongst it all, we will remember that food is one of the last remaining accessible pleasures and that families are doing their best often in difficult circumstances.

And perhaps the Scottish Government should give people like my mum a call. She’d talk them through the practicalities of raising and cooking for a family on a tight budget.

If nothing else, ministers would get the chance to sample her beef stew. Which, despite my years of competitive grafting, I’ve yet to replicate, let alone surpass.