Matt and I love Jamie Oliver. Last night we watched the premiere of series 2 of Food Revolution.We seem to watch a lot of cooking shows in this house, huge crush on Jamie Oliver aside. The new season of Masterchef has started which we all look forward to, we've also seen a few My Kitchen Rules. Mieke and Quinn have a keen interest in the methodology of cooking and discussion about ingredients often ensues.
Jamie Oliver appears to have his work cut out for him in LA. The Los Angeles Unified School District has closed their doors and are not allowing him into their schools, despite a well known national obesity epidemic and all the related health issues. The sorts of food that is fed to children via their schools is nothing short of appalling. Beige, refined carbohydrate-rich, nutritionally poor, heat-in-the-bag, manufactured rubbish.This isn't confined to LA, it's happening in other areas of the western world. And we wonder why our children are fat, why they feel lethargic, why they can't concentrate, why heart disease and type 2 diabetes is on the increase. Is it really rocket science? We have experts explaining this link regularly and yet as a society we continue to not only pump this crap into the mouths of our babes, but the hierarchy of people who have the power to make significant large-scale changes endorse it by behaviour like that displayed on Jamie's show last night. This sends a clear message about the values they hold in high esteem, and it ain't the health of children.
My personal experience with food in educational institutions has been positive, acknowledging the different systems between Australia, UK and the USA (ie: parents supply the lunch here). Our kinder had a healthy snack rule. The school that my children attend has a 'healthy lunch' policy which hopefully is the case for all schools in Australia - but I'm not sure. There is to be no rubbish in the lunch box. Kids are to take water only and they must have fresh fruit and/or vegetables. Last year we had campaign to highlight that white bread is not a healthy choice and the school urged parents to give their children wholemeal bread instead. We don't have a canteen either, once a week the children have the option to get Subway. Last nights Jamie episode highlighted that we are incredibly fortunate.
It seems to me that children in general in today's world are far removed from where food actually comes from. In one of Jamie Olivers epsiodes in a previous season (UK I think) many kids weren't able to correctly identify fresh vegetables, and this would be the case for many children here too. We live in a society where we go to the supermarket and buy our food in bags, packets, cans, our meat in trays, much of our bread is bleached white and fluffy and sugary (I was asked recently by an adolescent what the "bits" were in a slice of multigrain bread). We can't ever really know what is in our food when we buy it this way yet it is the norm for us now. Ingredients on the packets include sugar, salt, strings of numbers which mean flavour, colour, preservative, anti-caking agent and a variety of other mysterious things. Are chicken nuggets really made from meat that we would consider satisfactory if we could see it pre-nugget? What about hamburgers, what part of the beef is it exactly?
I don't claim that our family eats fresh, unprocessed food all the time (far from it) though I have been told on more than one occasion that I am 'anal' when it comes to the foods and drinks I will not let my children consume on a regular basis, which I find alarming. Alarming because I've always understood my role as a parent is to act in the best interests of my children in all areas of their development, and the evidence of the ramifications of poor diet is very well publicised.
Go Jamie, love your work. We will be watching with interest and hoping someone with clout starts thinking wisely about the way LA children are eating and what you have to offer.
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