Lorraine Kelly tells us how much she loves an onion

by Taryn Davies | 26 September 2011

"I'm all for getting a bargain, making sure that you're living well and it's not going to cost you a fortune," Lorraine Kelly sounds like a woman of our own hearts. It's no wonder that she's brightening up our mornings for the past 20 years and has yet to show signs of leaving the sofa behind.

In her latest campaign, she's helping to promote the products that we get the most pleasure per penny. With the onion coming out on top, it was closely followed by carrots, baked beans, bananas then pototoes helped to round up the top five.

Quite surprisingly, chocolate never made it into the top 20, neither did cakes, crisps, beer or wine.

Lorraine says: "I'm actually dumbfounded that the onion came out on top. Where you not really surprised? I thought it was going to be chocolate."

But, as shocking as it may be, when you actually think about it the staple can be put with pretty much anything.

"You just use it for so, so many things. Just to cheer something up... Obviously if you're making anything Italian, or maybe your making an Indian curry and even things like a simple pasta dish, or even I was making an omlette for breakfast and just using one to jazz it up a wee bit, you just stuff an onion in there or you just use it for garnish on salad. When you actually think about it, I suppose you can understand why it has come out on top because you just use it for so, so many things."

It was just last year when ITV breakfast had a major upheavel and changed things around and we were left wondering who would be there to help wake us up in the morning. There were suggestions that after turning 50, Lorraine would be moved along for someone younger, but her popularity ensured that the Scot would be going nowhere.

"I was told quite early on that my show was going to be retained and as it is have its own identity. So it's very much a show standing on its own, in the way that Daybreak is on its own, I'm on my own."

She compares her job as TV presenter to that of a football player: "Nothing is forever, nothing lasts forever. It's great fun and marvellous but it will come to an end at some point."

But would she ever be able to just walk away from it? Leaving on her own terms would be too difficult she explains because it's just too much fun, when we spoke that week she had interviewed Colin Firth, "which was fantastic" and Joan Collins, "(she) is one of the funniest people in the world and she looks incredible, it's ridiculous, she's in her 70's and still looks like that. But when Joan comes on you're always aware that your nail varnish is not quite right, or that she can tell that you're wearing mismatching underwear."

After years of practice, with ten different things up in the air it leaves little room for the mother-of-one to get nervous. Plus, the likely hood is that she's already met them before. "I'm so lucky that I've been doing it so long, most of the people I've met before anyway, which is lovely."

However, there is one still on her list: "I've never interviewed David Bowie and he is my absolute hero, since I was a kid and I think I would go a bit gooey if he was on. I think I would be a bit star struck."

The 51 year old is living testament that hard work is what employers are after, she turned down a spot at university in favour of a job on the East Kilbride News, her local newspaper and then joined BBC Scotland as a researcher in 1983. But she does acknowledge that this is not likely to happen now: "I think times have changed too much. I think that employers are a lot more demanding now when it comes to journalism courses."

But talking about the hike in university fees she has very strong feelings about other opportunites that young people can take. "I would love to see more people that are very skilled, very intelligent and very hands-on doing more apprenticeships. Definitely girls as well, being plumbers, electricians all of that because that's a great career and I just wish that we had more schemes like that. There's isolated pockets of enlightment but not as many as there should be.

"I would hate it to go back to it's only how rich you are if that decided whether you could go to university or not. I really don't want the pendulum to swing back."

This is not only one of Lorraine's pet peeves. She has talked about her distaste for the WAG generation before and when I ask her about it, she sounds truly disheartened.

"The whole thing actually makes me very sad. And what really saddens me is that so many young girls aspire to be that, they're not aspiring to be doctors or lawyers, they want to be these girls that cheapen themselves. I just don't understand it."

She also doesn't understand how they can stay with them once they've found out they've been cheated on.

"I think that the people who cheat on their wives are absolutely dispicable and I find it astonishing that so many of them take them back time and time again. I mean nobody knows what goes on inside people marriages but if somebody is cheating on you all of the time, surely it's time to call it a day.

"Surely all of the handbags in the world are not worth that. I think it's quite a shallow life really, or it can be. But then ofcourse there are plenty of footballers who are happily married and they get on with it. I just find that whole WAG culture sad more than anything."

It's not surprising that Lorraine can't get her head around a marriage filled with such sadness, she's been married to Steve since 1992 and it's easy to believe that she has the picture-perfect marriage.

They recently moved thier family back to Dundee, after living just outside of London. Through the week she spends her time in her small flat in London, whilst Steve and Rosie, her daughter, stay at home. She says: "It's half and half really. I have a wonderful time in London, then I go home and go for lovely walks on the beach and have family life which is great. It's the best of both worlds."

Long may she enjoy splitting her time between both worlds, because we couldn't imagine a time when Lorraine was there to greet us in the morning her warm, cheery personality.

Lorraine Kelly is the face of The Live Well For Less Index by Sainsbury’s. The Index ranks the supermarket’s top 100 products in order of how much pleasure they bring per penny paid.

In her latest campaign, she's helping to promote the products that we get the most pleasure per penny. With the onion coming out on top, it was closely followed by carrots, baked beans, bananas then pototoes helped to round up the top five.

Quite surprisingly, chocolate never made it into the top 20, neither did cakes, crisps, beer or wine.

When Joan (Collins) comes on you're always aware that your nail varnish is not quite right, or that she can tell that you're wearing mismatching underwear

Lorraine says: "I'm actually dumbfounded that the onion came out on top. Where you not really surprised? I thought it was going to be chocolate."

But, as shocking as it may be, when you actually think about it the staple can be put with pretty much anything.

"You just use it for so, so many things. Just to cheer something up... Obviously if you're making anything Italian, or maybe your making an Indian curry and even things like a simple pasta dish, or even I was making an omlette for breakfast and just using one to jazz it up a wee bit, you just stuff an onion in there or you just use it for garnish on salad. When you actually think about it, I suppose you can understand why it has come out on top because you just use it for so, so many things."

It was just last year when ITV breakfast had a major upheavel and changed things around and we were left wondering who would be there to help wake us up in the morning. There were suggestions that after turning 50, Lorraine would be moved along for someone younger, but her popularity ensured that the Scot would be going nowhere.

"I was told quite early on that my show was going to be retained and as it is have its own identity. So it's very much a show standing on its own, in the way that Daybreak is on its own, I'm on my own."

She compares her job as TV presenter to that of a football player: "Nothing is forever, nothing lasts forever. It's great fun and marvellous but it will come to an end at some point."

But would she ever be able to just walk away from it? Leaving on her own terms would be too difficult she explains because it's just too much fun, when we spoke that week she had interviewed Colin Firth, "which was fantastic" and Joan Collins, "(she) is one of the funniest people in the world and she looks incredible, it's ridiculous, she's in her 70's and still looks like that. But when Joan comes on you're always aware that your nail varnish is not quite right, or that she can tell that you're wearing mismatching underwear."

After years of practice, with ten different things up in the air it leaves little room for the mother-of-one to get nervous. Plus, the likely hood is that she's already met them before. "I'm so lucky that I've been doing it so long, most of the people I've met before anyway, which is lovely."

However, there is one still on her list: "I've never interviewed David Bowie and he is my absolute hero, since I was a kid and I think I would go a bit gooey if he was on. I think I would be a bit star struck."

The 51 year old is living testament that hard work is what employers are after, she turned down a spot at university in favour of a job on the East Kilbride News, her local newspaper and then joined BBC Scotland as a researcher in 1983. But she does acknowledge that this is not likely to happen now: "I think times have changed too much. I think that employers are a lot more demanding now when it comes to journalism courses."

But talking about the hike in university fees she has very strong feelings about other opportunites that young people can take. "I would love to see more people that are very skilled, very intelligent and very hands-on doing more apprenticeships. Definitely girls as well, being plumbers, electricians all of that because that's a great career and I just wish that we had more schemes like that. There's isolated pockets of enlightment but not as many as there should be.

"I would hate it to go back to it's only how rich you are if that decided whether you could go to university or not. I really don't want the pendulum to swing back."

This is not only one of Lorraine's pet peeves. She has talked about her distaste for the WAG generation before and when I ask her about it, she sounds truly disheartened.

"The whole thing actually makes me very sad. And what really saddens me is that so many young girls aspire to be that, they're not aspiring to be doctors or lawyers, they want to be these girls that cheapen themselves. I just don't understand it."

She also doesn't understand how they can stay with them once they've found out they've been cheated on.