Jamie's food revolution - America

Reality show uncovers the food secrets of America's least healthy city

In overturning the eating habits of America's most unhealthy city, a lot of dirty food secrets were bound to come to light. At the schools alone, Jamie Oliver found breakfasts of pizza, potatoes that weren't potatoes (they were made of Potato Pearls), and lunches where french fries qualified as vegetables. This doesn't just leave a bad taste in your mouth, as Jamie cries on this week's new series Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, it's "a matter of life and death."
If you don't know who Jamie is, you're probably not British. In England, he has a food empire as visible as Martha Stewart's is here, but he's 34 and has his sights set on redesigning institutional food programs for children -- first in his homeland, now in the U.S.

The most sobering fact about America's obesity problem is that children today are part of the first generation with a shorter life expectancy than their parents. In this show, Jamie does battle with institutions and traditions to fix this problem in Huntington, West Virginia, which was named the "unhealthiest" city in America, based on statistics from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control).

In Yahoo! T.V.'s Q & A with Jamie, he denies the claim that picky kids are the problem; it's busy parents who were never taught how to cook nutritious food that tastes good. "If you go and look at a kids' menu, it's nuggets, burgers. If you look at the school cafeteria menu, there's nuggets, there's pizza, there's corn dogs, there's sloppy joes. They're all hand-held foods," he says. These are foods that satisfy the most basic desires of a child's palate, but do not deliver nutrients in an efficient way. In other words, parents are making easy choices instead of good choices. Why? Evidence suggests that the healthfulness of a community is based on its income and education. Some parents have three jobs. Some haven't been introduced to better, affordable options. Jamie doesn't seem to think this needs to be true. On the show, he is adamant, "just a little effort can make a massive difference."


Source: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/food/...-city-1232550/

I have seen first episode via satellite days ago.. well my mood goes between shocked and happy. Shocked because oh god are American school kids usual to lunch with that shite everyday? i mean burgers, fried chicken, french fries, frozen pizza... in the other hand finally someone teaching people how to eat healty..

I dont like reality shows at all but this is very interesting and informative. Not the usual trash from what i have seen by now

About time someone teaches them that they eat total crap.

Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution – Preview Episode

by John Frost
Huntington, West Virginia, a city of 50,000 is officially the ‘unhealthiest city in America.’ That makes it the perfect target for Jamie Oliver, a young chef from England who succeeded in revolutionizing the school food system in that country. But will the city embrace Oliver’s attempt?
Tonight was a special preview episode of the show that debuts Friday this week on ABC. Here’s my recap, but if you found yourself watching this show and would like to write recaps of the show for The Disney Blog, drop me a line.
Jamie’s starts his conquest with an interview with local DJ Rod Willis. It didn’t quite go the way Jamie wanted it to as the DJ was being an obstinate jerk about Jamie’s effort to make a change.
Next up Jamie takes on a challenge to makeover the school’s food menu in a week. What he discovers is ‘Breakfast Pizza’ – not eggs on toast, but real pizza with cheese, pepperoni, and everything. I’m in disbelief as was Jamie.

The women in the kitchen are of the mind that nothing is wrong with what they’re doing. Of course, Jamie calling them ‘lunch ladies’ didn’t help. They prefer cook, and why wouldn’t they. Alice runs the kitchen and if you’ve lived in the south for any length of time you’ve met a dozen Alice’s. They are fixed in their ways and don’t see any reason to change.
Along the way Jamie learns the marvelous school lunch invention known as Potato Pearls. Which is just the top of the processed food group that is fed to the students every day. Much of which ends up in the garbage. Jamie makes some good points, that all this wasted food is costing tax payers and that students in South Africa are eating better than American students on a much smaller budget.
Jamie then tries to convince the cooks that they can do food fresh for the same budget and in the same amount of time. The cooks fall back on the ‘guidelines’ they’ve gotten from their superiors and defend their processed food choices as long as a natural ingredient is listed first. Jamie makes a good point that that’s okay for adults who know what choices they’re making, but that kids don’t get that choice. Still the cooks are unconvinced that they can make a difference.
Jamie’s got two strikes so far. So he heads to visit Pastor Steve who is on a bit of a health mission himself. Looks like Jamie has found an ally. Pastor Steve had a wake up call when his congregation started dropping like flies from diseases related to unhealthy lifestyle. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship and a way to reach the townsfolk.
Pastor Steve suggests Jamie work with one family from his flock. The Edwards family is Jamie’s first task. To be honest, they’re the prototypical unhealthy American family. Overweight, even obese, and they default to deepfried or junk food when it’s more convenient than healthy eating. He’ll re-teach them proper eating habits and see if he can’t start making a difference on family at a time.
They start off by cooking one weeks worth of food for the family as they have been eating. It’s a stunning mess of gross disgusting deep friend, cheesy, fatty, processed … I don’t even know if you can call it food. And frankly, it’s probably killing the Edwards family, at least shortening their lives by a dozen years or so. It’s a tough moment, but it’s something to build on. I look forward to seeing what Jamie can do to help the Edwards, and the millions of families around the world who are doing the same thing with their eating habits.
Now, onto building some food habits. One of the Edwards kids, Justin, wants to be a chef. Jamie clamps onto that seed and shows them how to cook from raw. He then leaves them with a week long list of food recipes to follow and a pretty decent meal of salad and pasta.
Part of Jamie’s food revolution includes opening a ’store’ where people can come along and learn healthy cooking as well as serve as the basecamp for Jamie’s show. The store is right across the street from a “Five Guys Burgers”, which is probably a strategic choice.
His first guest is Rhonda, who is in charge of school food for the district of 26 schools. Jamie tells her his mission, and she immediately unloads the literal mountains of bureaucracy she has to deal with just to get food on the plates. There are calorie requirements, portion guides, nutrition rules, and of course a budget. But she’s ready to work with Jamie as long as he meets those guidelines. So Jamie gets his one week to try and reform that school.
So back to school and getting the cooks to prepare food from fresh. It’s a going to be a battle between Jamie’s food and the standard fare. Jamie’s also battling the nutritional guidelines. Guidelines that accept pizza crust as bread, but won’t let you substitute a more healthy portion of brown rice. With a battle between ‘Chicken’ and ‘Pizza’ I think you can determine the results. Fresh lost to processed food. Jamie has a problem.
On top of that, a newspaper story has put Jamie’s efforts in a bad light. After putting out the fires that creates, Jamie opens his heart a bit to the cameras. It’s a pretty powerful moment, and a good way to end the episode.
As a side note the episode was interrupted by the historical health care vote and I nearly lost the end of the show on my DVR. Luckily rewind worked. Kinda ironic, actually.
I like how Jamie was very respectful to everyone he encountered. He’s serious about what he does, but he knows when to be direct and when to deflect with a little bit of humor. It does come off a little bit sermony from time to time. But it’s hard to avoid that when you need to make a point.
Teaching America to eat healthier is not an easy task. Even if we all followed Jamie’s lessons, it probably wouldn’t be enough to make us all healthier. There’s just so much to overcome. But I think his heart is in the right place and I hope he’s able to succeed. I’ll certainly be watching the show this season to find out.

source: http://thedisneyblog.com/2010/03/22/...eview-episode/

Ha, I wondered why the latest South Park episode mentioned Jamie Oliver lol, hope we'll get it here in the UK as it sounds like a very interesting show, actually think I'll just watch it online instead of waiting months for it to be released here

I've seen all the episodes so far, it is excellent.

I was really against it after 1st, hearing that another European was coming to America to judge us and tell us what we are doing wrong ect....
(American Idol,DWTS ect.....)

Watched all the episodes so far and there pretty good.

Funnier still, since the show began I eat alot more salads at home.

A good show and a good example to what it could be like.

Originally Posted by davide.cool

I have seen first episode via satellite days ago.. well my mood goes between shocked and happy. Shocked because oh god are American school kids usual to lunch with that shite everyday? i mean burgers, fried chicken, french fries, frozen pizza... in the other hand finally someone teaching people how to eat healty..

I dont like reality shows at all but this is very interesting and informative. Not the usual trash from what i have seen by now

Yes, that is the crap we ate every day in school. It's disgusting though and few people actually like it. Plus it costs like $1.50.

Anywhere I can watch this online as everywhere I try you have to be living in the US

Interesting to see the American responses to this. I've watched a little of this series over the net, but TBH its pretty much the same as the show documenting his campaign here in the UK. Makes for compelling viewing if you're new to it though.

The changes he wrought in British school food came a little too late for me, I was already (and still am) pulled home on lunchtimes by my parents, after they saw the original "Jamie's school dinners"