I'm always willing to cop to my somewhat retrogressive knee-jerk reactions, so here goes.
Last night I happened to catch a few minutes of the season premiere of chef Jamie Oliver's ABC reality series, Food Revolution. The basic premise of the show is that Jamie travels across America doing essentially the same thing he's become both famous and notorious for in his native Britain: trying to educate people about the dangers of the processed foods they're eating and drag them, kicking and screaming if necessary, toward a more healthy diet, all in the name of combating the dreaded "obesity epidemic." It should surprise no one that Jamie concentrates a substantial portion of his effort on what kids eat -- specifically what schools feed to kids. Obviously at face value this is an inarguably noble cause.
It should be said that I'm actually a big fan of Jamie Oliver's. I used to watch his BBC show The Naked Chef semi-religiously; I bought several of his cookbooks and I always admired not only his technique as a chef but his philosophy of teaching people to cook rather than simply training them to adhere to recipes and mimic styles. In other words, I'm always more than willing to give Jamie the benefit of the doubt. But something about the tone of last night's show, and maybe the show in general, really irked the hell out of me.
You'd be a fool to deny that we have a very serious problem with obesity -- particularly childhood obesity -- in this country. While I've argued plenty of times before about the media's irrepressibly giddy lust for slapping the term "epidemic" on any and every problem that affects a large enough group, there are far too many obscenely overweight people across this great land of ours, and if you think it's simply a personal decision that affects no one but them and the Wal-Mart scooters whose suspension systems they push to the point of collapse, think again.
The fact is that you and I ultimately pay for the health issues all that weight brings with it, even if we're not the ones packing on the pounds (which statistics say we likely are at this point). We pay via higher health insurance premiums, higher prices from businesses forced to either accommodate the obese or work around the days off from work they're inevitably forced to take, and more strain on Medicare. According to one estimate, if the obesity rate in this country continues to climb, by 2018 it will cost America $344 billion annually. So, yeah, it's in our collective best interest as a nation to slim the hell down.
So why did it bug me to watch Jamie Oliver condescendingly castigate the owner of an independent restaurant in Los Angeles for having the temerity to serve milkshakes that contain actual ice cream as opposed to, say, yogurt and fruit? That's exactly what happened at one point, with Jamie seeming exasperated at the notion that someone would want to serve a customer a milkshake if that's what he or she orders.
"That's not a milkshake; that's a smoothie," the restaurant owner says. "But why does it have to be? It's a milkshake," Jamie responds. I get that Jamie Oliver is undertaking the herculean task of trying to get us to change the way we think about the food we eat on a level that's DNA-deep, but I couldn't help but think that the hapless guy trying to run the restaurant aimed at, oh I don't know, giving people what they ask for, was right and his inquisitor from across the pond was wrong.
People should be encouraged to buy smoothies rather than milkshakes; each of us should know what one can do to our health versus the other. But if somebody wants a milkshake, that person should be able to get a freaking milkshake. Once again, while there's an argument to be made that I'll eventually pay for the ingestion of too many shakes one way or the other, I'm not sure I or anyone else should be denied something that's harmless in moderation just because somebody else can't control him or herself and treats fatty foods like cocaine.
Jamie Oliver's biggest push, though, is something he and his army of acolytes have been following up for the last 14 hours or so via the circulation of a petition on Twitter. Jamie's white whale of the night -- one which keeps jumping out of the water as the series progresses -- was of course school cafeterias, mostly because they've got a captive audience and have a monumental impact on how someone's diet develops throughout his or her life.
So what do Jamie & Co. want? No "sugary milk" in school cafeterias. In other words, they want to see chocolate milk, strawberry milk, any milk besides just plain old milk banned. Again, I get the argument that little good comes from giving kids milk that pumps them full of sugar and empty calories, but is an outright ban on it really the way to go? What about the child who just likes chocolate milk and can actually handle drinking a carton of it without ballooning into a mocha-colored Violet Beauregarde? At what point do we draw the line? At what point do we decide to stop protecting some at the expense of the legitimate desires of others?
I'm all for healthier options at America's schools; that and food education are musts at this point in our evolution as a nation. But there's a difference between an option and a mandate. And while it makes sense for Jamie Oliver and his Food Revolutionaries to fire all guns at once with the understanding that it may be what's required to effect even a small amount of necessary change, there's still something decidedly draconian about pushing to reflexively relieve us of our freedom of choice when it comes to what we eat.
Now, who's up for an In-N-Out Double-Double?
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It makes sense to strictly regulate food served in school cafeterias for the simple reason that it is hypocritical not to. We teach kids every day and at every grade level about the importance of nutrition, and then we demonstrate complete apathy about the subject in the cafeterias in the name of some I'll-conceived rendition of "freedom of choice."
We teach them not to smoke and not to drink and not to do drugs, and that's why those products are banned from schools and are illegal in most cases. So it appears that the long slow suicide of smoking is to be prevented, but the long slow suicide of poor eating habits is OK. That's what Mr. Oliver is trying to combat.
Sugar and corn syrup are a big business. They are easy to produce, store, transport and trade. So the food corporations need as much of it as possible in our food. The higher percentage of sugar content in food that doesn't need it in the first place, the more easy money is made. What's the easiest way to get a nation hooked on sugar? Serve it everyday to school kids, in as much products as possible. The same thing can be said about processed foods. The companies want to get their brands into the fabric of these young developing minds. So, for the rest of their lives they see a Doritos bag and think, "ahhhh, Doritos, feels like when I was young".
Just to echo what others are observing in earlier posts, these are kids in schools, not adult consumers. They look to us for guidance and it's our responsibility as a community to give them healthy choices. The choice of chocolate or strawberry milk is not a choice, it's plain old poor judgement.
Thank you, Jamie, for having the guts to tell it like it is. No one is taking away our choices, but thankfully, someone believes in our kids enough to put his neck on the line and risk of being tarred and feathered by individuals who equate being American with being able to choose what's bad for you.
I guess things have really changed. Now children eat so much of the cafeteria food they are getting fat! And the reason they drink their milk is because it is chocolate, not to have a carton to hide yucky food in.
If Jamie Oliver can make school cafeteria food healthy AND edible, more power to him!
This bugged me too. This was Jamie's truly "stupid" moment. He came off as a git, becoming exasperated that the owner wouldn't recognize his yogurt smoothie as a 'milkshake', despite it not containing an ounce of milk. And his angus burger was great, but attacking the owner for not adopting it when it costs twice as much, was just dumb on a stick. Equally for asking the owner to change his items, when Jamie was not able to suggest healthier items at the *same or lower cost*. Querying a customer who said he wouldn't pay the higher cost of the angus burger proved Jamie does not know squat about running a fast food restaurant.
"I get the argument that little good comes from giving kids milk that pumps them full of sugar and empty calories, but is an outright ban on it really the way to go? "
Yes. For school kids, YES. Picture that in large bold letters.
"What about the child who just likes chocolate milk and can actually handle drinking a carton of it? "
He is free to drink that carton at home, after school, or bring it in his lunch (unless the school bans sack lunches).
"At what point do we draw the line? "
At the point of school children, who are developing eating habits for life at this age. That's the core of what the "food revolution" is all about.
Parents brought in samples of the lunches that were available and they were worse than anything shown in last season's show. To have items that are to be microwaved in plastic packaging is just wrong. To offer nothing that is fresh is also wrong. Oliver showed the cafeteria workers in Huntington WV how to prepare food that was healthier and faster than opening a can was and I have to admit to having been shocked when a lot of the kids were unable to name what many everyday vegetables and fruits were.
The LA school system isn't offering freedom of choice, it's freedom from choice... the kids are not being given choices that would allow them to put together a healthy (or tasty) diet. If chocolate milk was the only problem, Jamie Oliver wouldn't have a show.
Inform consumers instead of limiting choice. It's far more effective.
Restaurants should be required to list the basic food information on their menu for the entire dish. That way people can make intelligent choices about what they are eating. And then when nobody orders the 1,000 calorie milkshake, they can substitute a 500 calorie smoothie instead.
Or they say " I know the school food is bad, so I just pack my kids' lunch." That's great and I wish more people would- but what about all the kids whose parents can't or won't pack a healthy lunch? Don't they deserve tasty healthy food too? Even if you don't care about them, they will be sitting next to your kids all day, taking up the teacher's time, not able to pay attention, taking up more resources of the school system. You should at least care about that, even if you don't care about other people's kids.