Jamie Oliver has defended residents of Rotherham after he was accused of making them look like "numpties" and "thickos".
The TV chef came under fire last week after the first episode of his Channel 4 series, Jamie's Ministry of Food, featured a mother-of-two from the town who fed her children solely on fast-food takeaways.
Another woman was featured who regularly ea
ts 10 packets of crisps for dinner.
But speaking on ITV1's GMTV Today, Oliver, 33, described the residents as "wonderful" and "amazing" and said they are helping to change people's lives.
In the four-part series, Oliver hopes to teach "pyramid cooking" - where he trains eight people to cook, they each pass on the recipes to two of their friends, and they will do the same until 250,000 have been taught to cook.
The chef told Fiona Phillips: "Rotherham's a great place, the people are amazing, and it's actually statistically the most normal town in Great Britain so in theory if anything works there, it could work anywhere in the country."
He continued: "I want people from Rotherham to think they've been put on the map, they're wonderful people.
Last week, John Gilding, leader of Rotherham Council's Tory group, said the programme gave the wrong impression that residents were thick and lived on fast food.
But Oliver said: "It's just really obvious to say if you don't know these basic things of cooking, you're stupid and it's not the case.
"I think in this story-telling of this programme, this snapshot of Great Britain, what I want the public to do is see their contribution can make a big difference."
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