Food Revolution

There's a new show on ABC called Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Please watch it. It's on Friday nights at 9PM on ABC; two episodes have aired and you can watch them on the website.

The premise is simple - Jamie (a British Chef probably most famously known as The Naked Chef) goes to Huntington, West Virginia (one of the unhealthiest cities in America) and tries to show them the error of their ways.

Of the two episodes that have aired thus far, the majority of his efforts have been aimed at schools. In particular he's been looking at the processed garbage that the elementary school is feeding the kids, and trying to substitute in fresh, healthy foods instead; something he had quite a bit of success with in England.

The thing that probably jumps out at most people when they first see this show is how resistant everyone is to Jamie. It's easy to immediately just label everyone in the town as ignorant hicks but I don't think that's really fair. I've seen that level of stubbornness EVERYWHERE; people in America don't like to even have a HINT that someone is telling them what to do. Nearly every giant debate we have in this country is over some group thinking that someone is trying to force them into something. It's just in our nature to resist that type of shit. You could say it's even genetic; the people who came to America in the 1600's were the people who said "screw this shit, I'm going for something better."

Anyway, getting off topic. The thing I've liked about the show so far is that Jamie honestly seems to care about what he's doing. Not only that, but he's focused very much on something that is easily attainable for the average American. My biggest complaint about movies like "Food, Inc" or "Fast Food Nation" (the former I really liked, while the latter I thought was garbage, but they both had a similar message) was that they focused on such a global problem. The industrialization of the food industry IS a real problem, and there are things we as consumers can do to combat it, but it's not going to change overnight. "Food Revolution" is focusing on things that could easily change overnight. He goes into a family's house and teaches them to eat healthy. He goes into a school and revises their menu and finds what works, AND he works with the superintendent to push these changes. He's making shit happen.

I won't say that anything I have seen shocks me, but it still fires me up. I don't even have kids, but seeing what kids are being fed in school, and the apathy towards it, is not just frightening but aggravating. While a town in West Virginia isn't necessarily a microcosm of the whole country, it's at least a microcosm of the attitude. Higher education in this country has always bothered me because it's treated more like a business than an educational endeavor, and I hate to see grade schools going down the same path. Everything, even down to the nutrition and health of students, comes down to the bottom line.

I don't understand why we're so focused on teaching kids reading, writing and arithmetic but can't be bothered to put any effort into teaching them how to be healthy. What's more important, both to the individual and to society as a whole? Not an election goes by without talk of education reform, test scores, blah blah blah, and in the meantime we cut gym class because of budgetary concerns and serve pizza for breakfast. I mean... fuck. We've all heard the "our kids are fat" argument ad nauseum over the past decade but we're not even fucking trying.

Yes, food and health education start at home, and it is ultimately the parent's responsibility to teach their kids to eat right and exercise and all that, but they still eat a large number of meals at school. It's not helping anyone if all those meals are chicken nuggets and pizza. I find it really inspiring that Jamie Oliver legitimately seems to want to change this and is using his fame and wealth to do so. Godspeed Jamie.