Originally aired in late March 2010, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution has focused attention on fast food culture throughout the United States. With a background in food advocacy back home in Great Britain, Jamie Oliver, the “Naked Chef,” is hoping to unveil the truth behind the food we eat and start a Food Revolution.
After the Center for Disease Control (CDC), published a report concluding that the region surrounding Huntington, West Virginia was the most unhealthy city in America, Oliver travelled there to start his project.
Oliver’s first stop was a local elementary school where the kids ate pizza for breakfast, loads of French fries, and cartons upon cartons of flavored milks. Quickly he realized that this food regimen was hurting the students and their future. He started to change the lunch menus at the school, but met a great deal of resistance from fellow employees as well as some neighborhood big wigs, especially the local radio show host. While Jamie worked to advertise his mission and get support from the community, he encountered a great deal of “bureaucratic red tape.” When creating his own school lunch meals, he had to abide by a strict set of meal regulations, without going over budget but still making the food fun and enjoyable for the kids to eat. When making a pasta dish with fresh vegetables, whole wheat noodles, and fresh fruit on the side, he was ridiculed for missing a full portion of carbohydrates. Also, in a similar dish, he was criticized for the dish lacking in the required amount of veggies per serving, although the vegetables were all fresh, colorful, and nutritious. In the short term, to remedy these problems, french fries were served as the necessary vegetable component and processed white bread was added to complete the carbohydrate levels needed. These requirements, although well intentioned, often end up causing more trouble than they should.
Quickly Oliver realized that he may have bitten off more than he can chew with this project. Nevertheless, this Food Revolution has directed the public’s attention to some of the bogus rules that have formed with the food system we use today. More and more, it looks like some of the rulings about healthy nutritional choices in elementary schools should be reevaluated. When flavored chocolate and strawberry milks are outselling unflavored milk because some research states that kids have more chance eating sugared milk than plain, this is evidence of misjudgement.
Another issue that has risen throughout this project is the accessibility of the fresh food that Oliver wishes to cook. Much of the food served today in schools are precooked, packaged and then frozen. Once in the cafeteria kitchens, the food is not cooked, it is instead heated and served. Due to this process, much of the flavor and nutrition is lost, leaving all students with a serious disadvantage.
Money has been a concern from the start. Fresh food is more expensive than processed, ready to bake food. The feasibility of Huntington’s school board to come up with the money to continue Oliver’s program is severely dependent on further donations and support. The cooking in the kitchen requires more time and work from the kitchen staff. Money must then be allocated to train new and current staff for new cooking procedures while also funding for the fresh food needed to maintain healthful cuisine.
These issues could all be resolved through policy change. Fresher, healthier foods should not cost more than prepackaged foods. It needs to be easier to make the choice to eat healthy as well as be more accessible to all social classes. Much of the frustrations Oliver has faced are based on him complying with already established food and nutrition guidelines. With more adept policy formation and implementation, we will be able to make changes and teach our youngest students by example.
I agree that there should be policies to help schools transition to better food choices. Even if there were incentives or smaller programs to encourage individual schools to begin making changes, it's better than nothing. My school kept the same food options, where french fries were always and most likely still are the most popular choice, but they changed their personal policy so that if you wanted to get fries, you had to also get the "main meal" which had some sort of meat dish and a vegetable. Either people would buy all of it, or they thought twice about it and ended up not getting the fries at all. While I'm sure that some people bought all of the food and then only ate the fries, it was a small step in the right direction. Can bigger policies really be implemented right now? I feel like school district superintendents right now are not going to go for a policy that will make them spend more money. Right now I know that my school just laid off about 10 teachers, so I doubt that they would agree to spend more money on different food. Health wise it isn't worth waiting for the economy to get better; is there a way that we can encourage school systems to make changes despite the cost?
ReplyDeleteI love this show! I think what Jamie Oliver doing is great. His show is bringing awareness to so many people across the nation about how important it is to eat healthier, especially in school systems.
ReplyDeleteMy sister works at a middle school in Stafford, Virginia. She always talks about how, for some of the less fortunate students, the food provided at school will be the only substantial meal they get that day. For all the students, but especially for the students who depend on school meals, health is vital.
Policy needs to be implemented to help make local and fresh foods the optimum choice for schools. This business of having prepackaged, unhealthy foods the cheaper, easier choice for schools needs to stop. If policies can be implemented to lower prices of healthier foods and there is staff that is more willing to put in the time to produce a meal on the spot, schools and the students attending will be better off for it. This revolution, if successful, could "save lives" as Jamie Oliver says.
I actually saw a part of this show that was deeply disturbing. Oliver showed kids what was actually in their chicken nuggets: everything from scarps and skin to bones and marrow - everything that no one would want to eat. It is all ground together to create chicken nuggets, which these kids eat. When he did this same experiment in England the children were horrified and no longer wanted to eat them, however the American children all raised their hands that they would still eat the chicken nuggets because they "taste good." In our fast-paced, consumerism driven world food often falls to a low priority, which shows how skewed our perspective is. Schools used to have long lunch periods during which children went home and ate lunch with their families. Now lunch periods are 20 to 30 minutes long. My lunch period in high school was 20 minutes including time to get to and from the cafeteria from class. that leaves 10 to 15 minutes to actually get and eat one's food. The result is that we scarf our food, whatever we can get our hands on, then run back to class. In that situation it doesn't really matter what one eats, how it tastes or what nutrition is in it. Although there are some drawbacks to having longer lunches (like school letting out later), the schools in france and much of Europe (as well as workplaces) still acknowledge the importance of a long lunch break, as well as remembering that a break such as this often makes one more productive when returning to work. America needs to refocus from its obsession with work, and consumerism and remember the importance of good mental and physical health, especially for our children who are still developing and desperately need good nutrition.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe main problem in this does not even need to be the issues concerning fresh vs. frozen food, and overhauling the entire food industry to make the prices comparable may be a bit extreme. While the food these kids are eating may seem obscene, the portion size is probably not -- money is the key player here, and as a former public school kid I cannot ever remember feeling like I had too much food. Another problem to consider is the number of students who are receiving free or reduced lunch through welfare programs. For a lot of them, school meals make up the brunt of what they are eating in one day, and during summer and winter breaks, these kids aren't getting enough food period so they once again resort to whatever is cheapest. In these situations, education for the parents is essential. Families receiving food stamps should be involved in some sort of nutrition program as requirement of them receiving aid from the government. Each state has extension agents in cooperation with that state's public universities -- there are extension agents in every country, and most counties have a nutrition specialist who should be doing this type of work.
ReplyDelete-Lindsey Sutphin
After reading this blog post, I must say I ended up watching quite a few episodes instead of doing my work. I don't know what it was. I was intrigued yet awe struck at what I was seeing. I will admit that I was not one the kids who attended public school so I have little personal experience on the matter, but it was frustrating to me that even our school systems have become as industrialized as our agriculture industry. The fact that a child is basically "prescribed" a lunch is outrageous. What's even more appalling is that a french fry is considered a vegetable and that you're required two breads/grains per meal. I realize that french fries are cheap but extra large clothing is not. I originally thought this show was going to address the issue of local food and the issue with lack of nutrition in conventionally produced food, but also never realized that there was this much of a problem with school food. There is so much wrong with the way we treat the future of America, the lack of local food seems a trivial aspect to the overall issue.
ReplyDeleteI fully agree that stringent federal policies and lack of funding prohibit better food in public schools. Although regulations place limitations on fat content (cannot exceed 30% more than energy from calories), they don’t regulate sugars. The current calorie levels set by government regulations are unrealistically high; this is another reason school find it hard to serve healthy food—it doesn’t have enough calories! However, although federal policies are not doing much to promote healthy eating habits, they aren’t the only cause of poor nutrition among children. I believe it also the role of the parents to instill healthy dietary patterns.
ReplyDelete