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Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
I've been watching Jamie 'The Naked Chef' Oliver's show: 'Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution' on ABC (Friday nights) and it's a fascinating look at one man's attempt to change the food habits of what is fed in the public schools in Huntington West Virginia, as well as the citizens of the town.
I don't want to get on my soap box, here... but... oh well... what the hey, what schools think is acceptable to feed kids I think is pretty damn disgusting and this show has brillantly depicted what schools shovel into kids diet, specifically elementary school kids - and in my opinion it's completely unacceptable. Personally I will never ever eat a chicken nuggets ever ever again. Anyhow the most recent episode put up a petition that everyone can sign and I really hope that we, all of us, who share the same opinion of Jamie's mission sign it: Want to Take Action? - Sign the Petition |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
I've been watching this too. It is amazing that what he is proposing is so hard to sell to the community. You would think they would be welcoming him with open arms. Who wouldn't want an internationally reknowned chef to work with them on developing a menu that is better for their students health and offers more variety and tastes better. But I suppose, as we have seen on the show it all comes down to cost.
I remember when I was paying for lunches in school they basically cost us a buck a day for whatever meat and 2 sides of veggie they were serving that day. Milks went for like 60 cents. Its probably not too much more now for kids. So when you think about it, its pretty amazing schools are able to churn out the variety they offer on their own. For the kind of meals Jamie is providing I would think the cost would be more like 5 bucks a day. But that's still better than most of us working adults have to shell out each day. |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
I wish our schools had lunch programs like the one here in one of Italy's poorest neighborhood schools (they're like the opposite of American schools):
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Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
I've been watching this as well. Overall it's better than I was expecting from an American channel. Thankfully ABC has not over serialized it and focused on what I'll call artificial drama. I was affraid it was going to turn out like Hell's Kitchen, and thanfully it has not.
I will say I'm getting annoyed by some of the school system personnel who seem of the opinion, "Sorry, I can't do anything about that." The biggest example is the lady who travels around to all of the schools to look at Jamie's work. After the revelation of the amount of sugar in the pink and brown milk I'm amazed they let that back in 5 days a week. It was very touching to see how much Jamie appreciated that one teacher telling her students to only have the regular milk. The few questions/comments I have: 1) Seems like this would have done better to run over 5 concecutive nights instead of Friday evenings 2) I feel like there was much more material if he was truely there for a month or more |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
I like how there wasn't enough vegetables in his stir fry to get reimbursed from the feds.
Yet french fries are considered a vegetable. -ohbfrank- |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
Originally Posted by nevermind
(Post 10112963)
I like how there wasn't enough vegetables in his stir fry to get reimbursed from the feds.
Yet french fries are considered a vegetable. -ohbfrank- Plus I didn't catch the "reimburse" part. If that's true it's even more pathetic since that means they hide behind the rules when it suits their financial decisions and don't take the health of the children up front. |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
Kids are not going to buy healthy food choices over the unhealthy ones if there is a choice. So the lunchroom has an interesting balancing act.
It comes down them them following the prescribed government guidelines and selling them to kids for under 2.00 while making some profit or enough to cover costs. So its not surprising that the situation with the milk went the way it did. Change has to come from the top down. If the head of child nutrition can't be bothered to get on board or see what Jamie is trying to do then she needs to be doing something else. She seems to be annoyed by the whole process. |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
It seemed to me that a majority of kids were buying lunches from the school instead of bringing a sack lunch from home. For me, during K-12 (public schools), only about 25% of kids got the school lunch. Everyone else brought (much healthier) food from home. Has that changed recently?
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Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
It can depend on the economic conditions of the families surrounding the school. Many of the kids going there may be on free or reduced lunch programs or that it just cheaper/easier to buy a school lunch than to make one and bring it.
When I was going you were made fun of for bringing your lunch in a sack once you got past elementary school. |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
Originally Posted by slop101
(Post 10113180)
It seemed to me that a majority of kids were buying lunches from the school instead of bringing a sack lunch from home. For me, during K-12 (public schools), only about 25% of kids got the school lunch. Everyone else brought (much healthier) food from home. Has that changed recently?
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Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
I haven't watched the show but everyone in my office has been talking about it.
My issue is more that this seems like a "worst case scenario" situation. My son's public school has pretty healthy lunches. Even when they have something like pizza, it's whole wheat crust. Veggies, fruits, white milk (chocolate too, but nothing too sugary)...I dunno. I just don't know how well the show paints a picture that this may be more of an isolated situation than "what kids are eating around the country". |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
Originally Posted by Kelkee
(Post 10113412)
When I was going you were made fun of for bringing your lunch in a sack once you got past elementary school.
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Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
Originally Posted by Superman07
(Post 10112982)
But that's BS too - "Oh, I can tell by looking." :gah:
Plus I didn't catch the "reimburse" part. If that's true it's even more pathetic since that means they hide behind the rules when it suits their financial decisions and don't take the health of the children up front. She definitely brought up needing to be eligible for reimbursement, but I don't blame the district as much as the feds. I think it's more pathetic that the USDA classifies french fries as a fresh vegetable. The USDA sets all the guidelines. The school district has a budget and has to be able to afford food for the whole year. If they aren't getting reimbursed, they aren't feeding their kids anything. BTW, the minimum amount of calories per USDA guidelines for a grade 7-12 child's lunch is 825 :eek: |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
Originally Posted by nevermind
(Post 10114344)
Yeah I love how she eyeballed it & said "oh that's not a cup and a quarter".
She definitely brought up needing to be eligible for reimbursement, but I don't blame the district as much as the feds. I think it's more pathetic that the USDA classifies french fries as a fresh vegetable. The USDA sets all the guidelines. The school district has a budget and has to be able to afford food for the whole year. If they aren't getting reimbursed, they aren't feeding their kids anything. BTW, the minimum amount of calories per USDA guidelines for a grade 7-12 child's lunch is 825 :eek: |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
Originally Posted by Draven
(Post 10113454)
I haven't watched the show but everyone in my office has been talking about it.
My issue is more that this seems like a "worst case scenario" situation. My son's public school has pretty healthy lunches. Even when they have something like pizza, it's whole wheat crust. Veggies, fruits, white milk (chocolate too, but nothing too sugary)...I dunno. I just don't know how well the show paints a picture that this may be more of an isolated situation than "what kids are eating around the country". I really hope this show sparks some real change in this country. If people want to eat themselves to death that's their prerogative, but most people simply don't know how bad the shit they continually eat really is for them. We live in a society where cereal and diet soda are popularly considered "healthy" and french fries are considered vegetables FFS. |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
Originally Posted by Superman07
(Post 10114879)
Is the daily recommended chaloric intake for 7-12 higher than ~2000?
No wonder kids crash after lunch. |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
I was talking with my niece about this (she's a freshman in HS). She said that you cannot get a regular soda in any of the machines or the cafeteria. There are choices of diet sodas, water, juice, and milk. I told her "that's a good thing"
Then she said that next to the diet soda/water machines are two machines full of chips and candy bars, and next to that there's a dippin' dots machine. |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
Originally Posted by Kelkee
(Post 10113046)
Kids are not going to buy healthy food choices over the unhealthy ones if there is a choice. So the lunchroom has an interesting balancing act.
My major problem was when they showed him at the food distributor who sent them processed, pre-breaded chicken parts instead of natural "naked" chicken. They HAVE unprocessed, raw ingredients to distribute. The schools aren't ASKING for it. It seems to me the school issue is centered around crazy, stubborn (and rather lazy and jaded) people like Alice - the elementary school kitchen runner. Truth is that shit doesn't give a shit about those kids. She just wants to do her job with the least amount of effort. By far the most shocking scene of the series has to be Jamie pureeing all those chicken garbage pieces which the kids refused to eat until he made it into a nugget. THEN the kids were like "yum!" Really? REALLY?! And the kids who didn't know any of the vegetables/fruit's names. That was just flat out appalling. And the politicians who were more concerned about the community's image being tarnished instead of acknowledging there is a problem and trying to fix it. Oh my GOD! :hairpull: Next week is the final episode. It does not look promising for Jamie... |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
Originally Posted by rfduncan
(Post 10115028)
By far the most shocking scene of the series has to be Jamie pureeing all those chicken garbage pieces which the kids refused to eat until he made it into a nugget. THEN the kids were like "yum!" Really? REALLY?!
And the politicians who were more concerned about the community's image being tarnished instead of acknowledging there is a problem and trying to fix it. Oh my GOD! :hairpull: |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
No it doesn't look promising. I expect everything to return back to the way it was before.
They should be running the lunchrooms like the clip above in Italy where there are no unhealthy options like burgers, fries, hot dogs and pizza served every single day. And those vending machines are all about $$$. The school makes money off those machines so there you have it. |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
I think there will be a little bit of change. But not as big as Jamie would have liked.
The truth of the matter is that the USDA recomendations are drawn up to support the agriculture in this country - they make any "rule" or recommendation that helps "subsidise" the mass produced agriculture. That is why a french fry is counted as a vegetable (support Idaho farmers); flavored milk is ok (dairy farmers); Processed foods are healthy for school lunches (corn industry / high fructose syrup). This is the real truth - Government spends a huge amount of money on these foods for school lunches.. and the lobbyists for the agriculture industry know where their bread is buttered. You show me a Dr. who would "ok" that the USDA says is a healthy school lunch. The school lunch program just creates artificial demand for certain segments of the US Agriculture industry. |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
Originally Posted by nevermind
(Post 10115051)
I thought that was the administrators from the area hospitals. Putting on my tinfoil hat for a minute, I'd say they just used that as a lame excuse to cover up the fact that a healthier Huntington results in less profits for the hospitals.
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Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
Here's an interesting article that came out today. The bolded part relates to my comments below.
Report says school food making kids unfit to serve Too fat to fight? Many American children are so overweight from being fed french fries, pizza and other unhealthy foods at school lunchrooms that they cannot handle the physical rigors of being in the military, a group of retired officers say in a new report. National security is threatened by the sharp rise in obesity rates for young people over the last 15 years, the group Mission: Readiness contends. Weight problems are now the leading medical reason that recruits are rejected, the group says, and thus jeopardize the military's ability to fill its ranks. In a report released Tuesday, the group says that 9 million young adults, or 27 percent of all Americans ages 17 to 24, are too fat to join the military. The retired officers were on Capitol Hill advocating for passage of a wide-ranging nutrition bill that aims to make the nation's school lunches healthier. The military group acknowledges that other things keep young adults out of the armed services, such as a criminal record or the lack of a high school diploma. Although all branches of the military now meet or exceed recruitment goals, retired Navy Rear Adm. James Barnett Jr., a member of the officers group, says the obesity trend could affect that. "When over a quarter of young adults are too fat to fight, we need to take notice," Barnett said. He noted that national security in the year 2030 is "absolutely dependent" on reversing child obesity rates. Recruitment isn't the only problem posed by obesity. According to the report, the government spends tens of millions of dollars every year to train replacements for service members discharged because of weight problems. This isn't the first time the military has gotten involved in the debate over school lunches. During World War II, military leaders had the opposite problem, reporting that many recruits were rejected because of stunted growth and inadequate nutrition. After the war, military leaders pushed Congress to establish the national school lunch program so children would grow up healthier. The program was established in 1946, "as a measure of national security," according to the original bill language. Today, the group is urging Congress to eliminate junk food and high-calorie beverages from schools, put more money into the school lunch program and develop new strategies that help children develop healthier habits. The school lunch bill, currently awaiting a Senate vote, would establish healthier options for all foods in schools, including vending machine items. The legislation would spend $4.5 billion more over 10 years for nutrition programs. The Army is already doing its part to catch the problem earlier, working with high schoolers and interested recruits to lose weight before they are eligible for service, says U.S. Army Recruiting Command's Mark Howell. He added that he had to lose 10 pounds himself before he joined the military. "This is the future of our Army we are looking at when we talk about these 17- to 24-year-olds," Howell said. "The sad thing is a lot of them want to join but can't." So, while I appreciate Jamie's goals, I think his focus on 100% fresh food may be his program's downfall. Fresh foods are best of course, but they are also very costly, and even more so when you factor in the additional prep work needed. A more realistic strategy, especially on a national level, would be make the processed food industry that supplies the schools produce healthier food, while simultaneously incorporating an increasing amount of fresh food into the menu. I don't fully blame the processed food industry because they sell what the schools will buy, and the school system has enough buying power to dictate what they want. The schools have the power here, so they bare the ultimate responsibility. |
Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
The promo they played during Lost for the season finale seemed more upbeat about the conclusion than what they aired after last weeks episode.
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Re: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
St. Ronald Reagan tried to get ketchup and relish classified as vegetables. Three servings of veg with every hot dog and fries. Go Team America!
I'm watching his BBC Ministry of Food and the Brits are worse off than W. Virginia. I can understand the wariness he faces in WV, nobody likes to be called the worst in the country/world. The radio host guy was obviously over-dramatized for production value. Jamie is so cute he can even win over the gruff radio host. I also love the "oh no you din't" look he gets every time he calls them "lunch ladies" |
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