Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

If you live in the United States or in Canada, and you watch TV, you've surely seen the ads for Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution reality TV show. He's been doing the talk show rounds lately, sitting down with Jon Stewart on the The Daily Show and David Lettermen on The Late Show. He's appeared on ABC's Good Morning America all in promotion for his show. Last night was the premier.

If you didn't see it and want to, go find it somewhere - I'm sure you'll find it on the web somewhere.  If you can't find it, here is a quick run down of what happened.

The show opens with Jamie on the Ryan Seacrest radio show saying that he's been banned from entering the LA public schools. He is looking forward to meeting the people of LA and has his kitchen open. He's hoping that the parents of LA will bring him examples of what their kids are eating at school. Not only was his counter covered with garbage food, it was covered with just plain old garbage! It turns out that not only does the LAUSD serve mystery meat, they serve centrally prepared meals which are then packaged in plastic containers and wrappers to be microwaved and re-heated at school then served to the children like the TV dinners they remind me so much of. (On a side note: when my first child was born, she was a high need child. I ate those frozen dinners often in those days, and I felt best about myself when I was able to eat that meal off a real plate rather than from the box it cooked in... Imagine how these kids feel when they are forced to eat off a plastified paper plate daily!) Jamie did find some fresh/whole/real food on his table. Turns out that the children who brought those foods in are being homeschooled.

He asked a very important question: How many kids changed their food habits after they started going to school? Many parents raised their hands. He explained where he's coming from. He is a chef. He's passionate about food. He's a dad. He's passionate about kids. He sees that some kids are not living the full life they could be living because of preventable illness and it's too often related to poor food and low food quality.

He went on to do a few demonstrations: where does meat come from? what do they do with remnants usually reserved for animal to make it okay for human consumption? how much sugar do the students in the LAUSD consume with their milk?

He tried to talk to the LAUSD at an open meeting, where anyone can have three minutes to present their case to the board members. I so loved the way he was politely told to speak to Mr. Barret in charge of food services, and then how Mr. Barret politely showed him the door. Then Mr. Alaniz steps out of the board room to inform Jamie that the Superintendent wants a written proposal of what's going on. Wasn't it a nice way to tell Jamie to get lost and never darken our doorstep again? I'm sure that Jamie and his crew dotted their i's and crossed their t's and minded their p's and q's, and that all of this information had already been provided to the LAUSD. Ah well. Who know's? Maybe the original request got lost in the mail.

He talked with a local fast food shop owner about his menu. Could there be something done to tweak the menu so that better options were available to clients. Sure, as long as long as nothing comes off the menu. Sure, as long as it doesn't affect the bottom line. The owner even admitted that he would not serve his own children the syrup that he serves to his clients! As a business owner, my clients are family! If I wouldn't treat my family this way why should my clients be any different? Granted, a milkshake is made with ice-cream. However when I make a milkshake, I use about 60 ml (1/4 cup) of ice-cream and frozen fruits so that my milkshake has both the richness, flavour and mouthfeel of a typical milkshake. We don't need to have so much ice-cream in our milkshakes that it nearly half fills the blender. Slight tweaks like this make for better food, better quality food and most wouldn't know the slight difference.

Jamie is asking us to be aware of what is in our foods, and where it comes from. Personally, I think this is something we can all easily do - simply by looking at the ingredient list on the foods we eat. If you feel you need a science degree to understand what you're eating, it might just be something that shouldn't be on your table regularly. As treats occasionally? Ok. Maybe. But most certainly not every day.

So let's encourage this movement. Let's be aware of what we eat and what is being offered to our children in the cafeterias at school.