The TV chef came under fire after the first episode of his Channel 4 series, Jamie's Ministry of Food, featured a mother of two from Rotherham who fed her children solely on fast food takeaways.

Another was featured who regularly eats 10 packets of crisps for dinner.

But speaking on ITV1's GMTV Today, Oliver, 33, described the South Yorkshire residents as "wonderful" and "amazing" and said they were 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 said: "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.

"And actually what they've got to realise is what we do in this programme could affect the way that policy and the public react, not just in this country but in other countries."

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 defended his actions.

"A lot of people locally have said I made Rotherham look like a bunch of thickos," he 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."

Oliver appeared with Julie Critchlow, a Rotherham mother who was pictured shoving burgers and chips through school railings in protest at menus suggested in the chef's previous series, Jamie's School Dinners.

Mrs Critchlow defended Oliver today, and said: "He's a great chef and a great person."

Oliver told GMTV he hoped the programme would show people they could change their own lives and should not rely on the Government to do it for them.
The second episode is shown at 9pm tonight on Channel 4.