Posted on 01/29/2012 8:25:36 PM PST by nickcarraway
It was Jamie Oliver’s toughest challenge... getting US youngsters to ditch junk food and eat a healthier diet.
But six months after he convinced an LA school to swap fattening burgers for low-calorie salads, his revamped menu is – literally – being binned.
Hundreds of students at West Adams Preparatory High School, where his hit show Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution was filmed, are refusing to eat his cuisine.
Instead, bins are overflowing with the TV chef’s veg curries, quinoa salads, Thai noodles and wheatbread burgers.
Many youngsters even go without lunch altogether.
Anna Redd, a cookery teacher at the school, where a shocking half of the students are overweight, revealed: “Things were positive at the start but now kids have made it clear to us, ‘This is not what we want.’
“Rather than eat the food that is provided in the canteen, they just throw it away.
“It is so sad to see, because now we have trash cans full of tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli and other vegetables.
“The school wants to bring in changes but the kids just have bad eating habits – and there is not much we can do about it.
“They eat junk food at home and so they expect to eat junk food at school too.
“I don’t know if it is a food addiction but I think it is wrong to blame the school district.
“These things have to start at home. If the parents are giving their kids junk food, how can we expect them to eat healthily at school?”
She said pupils at the school had been keen to take part in the scheme when Jamie was there, but as soon as he left they slipped back into their old eating habits.
Ms Redd added that the chef has been sending monthly boxes of vegetables to help obese diabetes sufferer Sophia Ruvalcaba – but she has not lost any weight since featuring on the programme.
More than three million Americans tuned in to see Jamie’s Food Revolution when it was screened last year.
He faced battles with Ramon Cortines, the superintendent of the Los Angeles United School District, who banned him from the city’s schools. Jamie had his filming permit ripped up and got so upset that he broke down in tears as he begged parents to help him.
He eventually found a loophole which let him into West Adams school. And soon afterwards a ban on junk food and milkshakes was announced.
Jamie set about working with local chefs to introduce radical changes to the lunch menu. But now many of Jamie’s meals are being thrown away before they are even opened and piles of unopened milk cartons are building up.
News of the failure of Jamie’s LA effort comes days after he was hailed for winning a battle against US fast-food giant McDonald’s.
After learning that ammonium hydroxide was being used by the chain to convert fatty beef offcuts into a beef filler for burgers in America, he denounced the “pink slime”. McDonald’s has now ditched the method.
A spokesman for Jamie said he was aware of the challenges at West Adams school and his team was talking to officials there to try to improve the situation.
African-American 11%
Asian 1%
White 1%
Latino 87%
Well, I don't doubt that provided an education for Jamie.
“This is a man who cooked in the nude until he accidentally set himself on fire.”
Must be a typo.
I reject the premise that schools should be feeding kids, in the first place.
Probably 99% of the kids get the lunch for free. If they had to pay the full cost of it, they’d eat it. Kids should pay for their own lunches (or their parents should) or bring their own. The whole argument that kids can’t learn on empty stomachs should bring shame to the parents and make them do anything to get food for their children. There is WIC, there are food kitchens, there are private charities. But no parent is motivated to care for their own children when they are used to letting the institutions pay.
Apparently, so did the kids.
You can have one kid in a full cafeteria say, in a loud voice, "this milk tastes funny" or "this fish tastes funny", and 2/3 of the kids will refuse to drink the milk or eat the fish.
You can have one kid in a full cafeteria say, in a loud voice, "this milk tastes funny" or "this fish tastes funny", and 2/3 of the kids will refuse to drink the milk or eat the fish.
No. Same outcome where he tried it in England before coming here. But I guess when you’re playing with other people’s money, it’s only intentions that matter.
Just why is it the feds’ business to impose minimum standards on school kitchens?
True! Oliver’s original moniker was “The Naked Chef.” Now he gets insulted if you use it. He had to be taken off “to hospital” after dumping boiling pasta (or something) on his bare chest.
For example, "cut" ground beef to make hamburgers with 1/3 ground turkey, and kids won't know the difference. Puree extra vegetables and mix into the tomato sauce with pizza, and again, who would notice?
Sweet potato fries, steak "fries" that are baked not fried, baked "fried" chicken. There are lots of ways to make the fare healthier without radically departing from what they want. You just have to use a little imagination.
The school administrators are leftists. Top down is the only approach they know. If you want them to do things any other way, you are going to have to force them.
“Who wants chowder??”
I absolutely agree.
My position on the issue is that the feds should not be dictating standards, but until the DoE is closed, it is what it is.
Huh? When did he cook in the nude? He had a show called The Naked Chef. He certainly wasn’t naked during the show. He just used basic, simple ingredients without a lot of fuss (hence the title “Naked”).
You’re absolutely wrong. Jamie Oliver worked at home in the nude hence the title “The Naked Chef.” It was a catchy title when he was first on the British “cookery” scene. After the burning incident, he dropped it and gets annoyed if he’s refered to in this way. He was also chased out of West Virginia while filming one of his politically correct food nazi stories. Let’s not even get into the whole “15” restaurant disaster.
I happen to think that anyone who cooks without clothes is a blithering idiot. Whether on tv or off!
There is one reference I could find about Jamie being naked. It had nothing to do with his show, and everything to do with him cooking nude for a significant other, one time... http://www.metro.co.uk/showbiz/673342-jamie-olivers-naked-nightmare/a>
Also: (from his Wikipedia page) "The Naked Chef (1998–1999) was Oliver's first series. The title was a reference to the simplicity of Oliver's recipes and has nothing to do with nudity. Oliver has frequently admitted that he was not entirely happy with the title, which was devised by producer Patricia Llewellyn. (In the UK edit of the show, the opening titles include a clip of him telling an unseen questioner, "No way! It's not me, it's the food!") The success of the programme led to the books Return of the Naked Chef and Happy Days with the Naked Chef."
Sounds like we can agree to disagree on Jamie Oliver.
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