How TV Superchef Jamie Oliver's 'Food Revolution' Flunked Out

[iris27]

Alternet article reveals Oliver over budget and under nutritional requirements for kids' school lunches in Huntington, WV; many kids stop eating the school lunch entirely.


http://www.alternet.org/food/146354/how_tv_superchef_jamie_oliver%27s_%27food_revolution%27_flunked_out/?page=entire


At the end of one episode, we hear Rhonda McCoy, director of food services for the local county, tell Jamie that he's over budget and did not meet the fat content and calorie guidelines, but she's going to let him continue with the "revolution" as long as he addresses these issues. What is not revealed is that the "meal cost at Central City Elementary during television production more than doubled, with ABC Productions paying the excess expense," according to a document obtained by AlterNet from the West Virginia Department of Education.

...

Turns out that even with an unlimited budget, Jamie was unable to design a menu that provided a minimum number of calories while not exceeding the fat limits. A nutritional analysis of the first three weeks of meals (15 lunches) at Central City Elementary conducted by the West Virginia Board of Education flunked him on both counts. A whopping 80 percent of his lunches exceeded either the total fat or saturated fat allowance, and most of the time both, and 40 percent of his lunches provided too few calories.

...

A document from the West Virginia Department of Education indicates Jamie's escapades put Cabell County's entire lunch program at risk. It stated: "Noncompliance with meal pattern and nutrient standard requirements may result in a recovery of federal funds." In plain English, the county could lose a large amount of funding because of the failure to meet the standards.

...

On top of that, according to the survey conducted by Dr. Harris and Dr. Bradlyn, "77 percent of the students indicated they were 'very unhappy' with the new foods served at school." During the first two months, the lunch participation rate dropped from 75 percent to 66 percent among surveyed students, and milk drinking evaporated by 25 percent.

[Bonobo]

1. Why place the focus on Jamie Oliver?

What a misplaced attack!

Oliver has placed the spotlight on a huge problem.

French fries are a vegetable? Who knew that eating french fries and rice on the same plate was a wise food choice?

A little common sense is needed in eating nd I do not believe for a second that Oliver's meals were "under the calorie guidelines" or "over the fat guidelines". There is good fat, bad fat, etc.

If you watched the show and actually considered the fact that no, the kids don't actually EAT the salads that are offered as an option, you would understand what the real issues are.

U.S. kids eat like SHIT at school compared to here in Japan (and probably much of the rest of the world). It's a fact and it needs to be discussed.

So why the hate?

[flvegan]

7. Agree with everything you've stated.

[Speck Tater]

13. I do not believe for a second anything that calls into question what I would rather believe.

Truth? Who knows?
Facts? Who cares?

I want to believe what I want to believe and I refuse to believe anything that doesn't agree with what I want to believe, and that's the end of that discussion.

[Bonobo]

15. That sword cuts both ways.

The difference is you choose to believe what YOU want and you call it facts.

You have no ind pendant verification of the 'facts'.

If you had watched the show, you would know that the supervisor woman didn't actually do her homework when she judged Oliver's meal to be insufficient in terms of veggies.

[Speck Tater]

17. I only believe what is fun to believe. Facts are too damn boring. nt

[Bonobo]

18. I guess you have proven your point.

And reached the limits of your intellectual abilities.

I think I'm done with you, but it was oh so much fun.

:freak:

[grantcart]

41. I think he was being sarcastic

[JI7]

14. i don't understand why the salads are only offered as an option

why not put the whole meal on one plate.

[DireStrike]

86. Good way to waste a lot of salad. -nt-

[JI7]

93. what do they do with the salad that nobody eats ?

[WolverineDG]

101. put it back in the fridge & serve it the next day

saves $ & prep time.

wish I wasn't kidding.

dg

[Scout]

75. what hate? where? n/t

[Toucano]

2. The poor little buggers are unhappy because they've been conditioned

to prefer junk food.

That sort of sticks out at you, doesn't it?

[graywarrior]

4. Read this about rats and their addiction to junk food

(snip)
Meanwhile, rats fed the human equivalent of a well-balanced, healthy diet -- and given only limited access to the junk food -- didn't gain much weight and knew enough to stop eating when they received the cue that a foot shock was imminent.

Even more startling, the researchers report, is that when they took away the junk food from the obese rats and replaced it with healthier chow, the obese rats went on something of a hunger strike. For two weeks, they refused to eat hardly anything at all.

"They went into voluntary starvation," said study author Paul Kenny, an associate professor at Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla.



Entire article
http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.aspx?docid=637430

[Bonobo]

6. The kids did exactly the same as the rats. Watch the cli[p I just posted and you'll see. nt

[Overseas]

44. Really amazing, yet I expected there would be elements in junky food

that increased their appeal and were enhanced to do just that.

There's also more uniformity in the mass processed foods-- you can get the exact chicken nugget taste you crave.

So I'm glad that some tests have been done that demonstrate just how addictive those foods can be.

It's not just a mild "free choice" type of preference-- it's a very strong compulsion, engineered to be that way-- to "give people what they want."

[Synicus Maximus]

83. So do I understand that you think we should shock kids when they

eat to much or unhealthy food?

[Bonobo]

5. Did you see them go for the "chicken nugget" that Jamie made out of scraps and bones?

WATCH THIS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKSoiDtdi9s

[gkhouston]

30. Yum. Ten tons of greasy, grimy gopher guts... n/t

[OnyxCollie]

32. As I once tried to comfort a dog

who lay dying, I offered fresh, raw chicken and steak. He had no interest in that. All he wanted was Bil-Jac.

That was it. No more processed crap. It's been raw food after that. To see how I had conditioned him to accept processed food over real meat was disturbing.

I have changed my eating habits as well. I recently stopped eating Wheat Thins and Triscuits and lost 20 pounds in two and a half months.

High fructose corn syrup is highly addictive poison.

[Toucano]

45. Congratulations on the weight loss

I has a similar conversion about 5 years ago and lost 30 pounds.

I might eat a processed snack food item once or twice a month, but meals are alway fresh, whole, and real. Not only is is amazing how easily the weight came off and stayed off, but it's also amazing how it's really NOT a lot more effort to prepare fresh food. If it requires 12 of 15 minutes more, it is easily time well spent.

It really is as simple as that.


I try hard not to proselytize, but when someone asks, I get all "new religion" on them.

[Arkansas Granny]

50. Sadly, this conditioning often starts at home. For whatever reason,

many children have already developed bad eating habits long before they start school. I've known several children whose meals came primarily from fast food joints or microwaved snacks foods.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Yeah ..... that damned commie bastid, Oliver. He's French right?

Huh?

British? He's a Brit?

Well fuck .... that's still Yerp, right?. He's a commie.








(Pssst .... Oliver has done more good *with*his*own*money than lots of other, far richer folks. And he cares.)

[Arugula Latte]

68. Damn Yuro-pein!

Trying to help people avoid dying of obesity, strokes, heart attacks and diabetes!!

How DARE he??!! :grr:

[jmowreader]

8. Some of his menu selections fall into the "what's the point?" category

Go to the menu and look at the 12th.

The school system's menu: Chicken and noodles, coleslaw, green beans, peaches, a wheat hot roll, and milk.
Jamie Oliver's menu: Creamy chicken pasta, carrot honey coins, a wheat hot roll, applesauce and fresh fruit.

There's a difference?

Go to the next day when they serve cheeseburgers and he serves pizza, the 15th where they serve chili dogs and he serves sloppy joes...it may just be me but it doesn't look like the school system is doing that bad of a job.

[Bonobo]

9. Yeah, but if the school stuff is frozen processed crap...

It is very different.

Plus, the school system began to work harder as soon as they started feeling the heat.

[WolverineDG]

22. The school's food is simply reheated processed crap nt

[jmowreader]

38. One of his menu selections was "beefaroni"

I pulled this guy's show up on Hulu. I think the cooks are right: five people couldn't put out 900 meals a day if they started with fresh ingredients unless you were gonna start feeding a steady diet of chili mac. You're looking at needing at LEAST a dozen people just for the prep cooking.

Also...the processed crap is less expensive to purchase. Remember: this is an institutional kitchen. This fucker is using OLIVE OIL in a school kitchen?

[WolverineDG]

42. But they have all that equipment that they aren't using

I get it that they have a very tight budget & only a few people to do the work. But that's part of the problem. The main problem is the guidelines that are so out of whack with reality that they require a dish of chicken & rice include another starch in order to be "healthy."

dg

[jmowreader]

60. I checked the food pyramid

It calls for six to eleven servings from the bread, cereal, rice and pasta group per day.

I pulled up episode 5...it's pretty humorous so far...the part where he went in to the two hospital administrators and the medical school dean and told 'em he needed 150 large...

As we go through all of this Jamie Oliver stuff, reeling through my mind is Frank Zappa's "Strictly Genteel"..."Lord, have mercy on the people in England for the terrible food these people must eat." At the end of the day, Jamie Oliver is cooking English food.

[WolverineDG]

77. Which only shows you haven't been to England lately

the food has massively improved.

:eyes:

I guess you're in the "crappy processed reheated pizza is always more healthy than freshly prepared chicken & rice" crowd, then.

dg

[jmowreader]

99. I'm in the

"crappy processed reheated pizza is always more healthy than freshly prepared chicken & rice if the kids won't eat the chicken & rice" crowd.

The kids who took the chicken & rice didn't like it. We can analyze this all day long--we can say it's because they're so used to eating junk they can't handle nutritious food, or whatever, but the simple fact is, the children who took the chicken & rice generally didn't like it. Food with lots of grease and salt that gets eaten is far more nutritious than perfect food that doesn't get eaten. Agreed?

Now go to the episode where he served the spaghetti with buckwheat pasta. I don't know what motivated this, but that was a great choice: it's not outrageously expensive to make spaghetti sauce, assuming he doesn't decide to put Kobe beef in it. It's simple to make--fry hamburger with whatever vegetables you want to use, open a few number 10 cans of tomato sauce, dump everything into a steam jacket kettle and add spices. You put one or two people making rolls two people making salads, and one person making sauce and boiling pasta, and you're fine. This is something they can actually do without completely changing the way the kitchen runs. And almost everyone likes spaghetti. Even the crotchety woman running the elementary school cafeteria would go for that. I have also noticed the meals he makes the kids really like are fun foods like wraps or spaghetti, rather than stuff like free-range chicken. They seemed to like the shepherd's pie too, and that's a good school lunch item.

[WolverineDG]

100. Sure, let them eat crap, then wonder why they're fat

I don't see how "chicken & rice" got to be considered "gourmet" food that kids would automatically hate. It's standard fare in reality-based kitchens.

dg

[Mimosa]

56. Oliver's not a great chef

My family had owned and run restaurants. I've seen Oliver's previous Naked Chef show a couple of times and watched a couple of the school lunch shows. he didn't know what he was doing during the latter.

I am SO GLAD Michelle Obama stood up Oliver. Whoever advised her to avoid meeting with him for a segment on the school lunch series was wise. That would have backfired big time!

[Puglover]

71. "Oliver"s not a great chef."

And what qualifies you to to judge here? The fact that your family owned and ran restaurants? That you watched his show a few times? What? I suggest you do a little reading on Jamie Oliver. Might change your opinion with a few facts.

[Mimosa]

94. I do know what makes a real chef.

And Tony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsey agree with me that Jamie's not a great chef. He's just not a pro. *lol*

And Michelle Obama was told not to meet with him. So there!

[WolverineDG]

79. "didn't know what he was doing"

more like "didn't know he was in Crazy Town where pizza & sugar-milk are considered more healthy than freshly prepared food."

And what cooking shows have you starred in? Books authored? Hmmm?


dg

[Name removed]

63. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jmowreader]

76. Let's play with our mashed potatoes, shall we?

I found the actual instant mashed potatoes that school serves: Basic American Foods Potato Pearls School Pak with Vitamin C Mashed Potatoes. According to the Nutrition Facts for this product, the serving size is four ounces. (http://www.profileshowcase.com/Product/BAF00202/000094/41770?MFR_NUM=00094&MFR_PRD_NUM=41770&CID=)

I also went to livestrong.com and found a mashed potatoes Nutrition Facts. (http://www.livestrong.com/thedailyplate/nutrition-calories/food/generic/mashed-potatoes-with-butter-225-milk/) The product on livestrong.com is rated at a 9-ounce serving, so I gotta do math to compare potatoes to potatoes, eh?

The shit the school's serving:
81 calories
7 calories from fat
0.7g total fat. 0.2g saturated fat. 0.3g trans fat. No cholesterol.
353mg sodium, or 15 percent of the total daily value.
17g carbs, or 6 percent of the total DV.
1.4g dietary fiber, or 6 percent of total DV.
0.5g sugars.
1.7g protein.

The Real Mashed Potatoes:
149 calories
46 calories from fat
5.12g total fat, 1.332g saturated fat. No trans fat listed.
2.22g cholesterol
97mg sodium.
16g carbs
Fiber is 1.332g
1.332g sugars
1.776g protein

The analysis of the two products leads me to believe if it was MY kid, I'd almost want him eating the bagged crap. The sodium in the bagged crap is outrageous; then again, most people would pur salt on real mashed potatoes so we don't really know what the sodium count on the real potatoes is. There's less fat in the bagged ones--you're probably going to put gravy, butter or both on either one, so either one of those numbers is really bullshit, but anyway. There are some stabilizers and shit in the bagged crap that isn't in the fresh potatoes, but in reality the bagged ones are NOT that bad. (And yes, if you don't stir the fuck out of instant mashed potatoes they turn into joint compound. I take it you haven't tried mashing real ones. They're easy to fuck up too.)

So I'm sitting here watching this guy's show. He walked into West Virginia to change these people's food without even knowing the MINIMUM STANDARDS for the food he's supposed to feed them. And that's fucking astounding. "You have to serve them two vegetables." Okay, he's all pissed off because French fries are a vegetable. Fine. Do sauteed julienne carrots and sugar snap peas. You can get those frozen in five-pound bags--throw a quart of oil in that fantastic stationary skillet, dump some of those frozen vegetables in there, and fry 'em up. Quick and easy--and cheap.

[grasswire]

78. FRY fresh carrots and sugar snap peas?

um. well. okay. 'nuff said.

And if you think fresh potatoes will turn into cement by mashing.....

[jmowreader]

90. Yes, fry fresh carrots and peas

Look up the term "Chinese Stir Fry." This guy's been running all over the place pushing stir-frying as a healthful cooking method (which it is, no disagreement there). It's quick and easy. Why not do it?

And no, fresh potatoes do not turn into cement by mashing. But if you don't mash them right, they are either so full of lumps you may as well not have bothered, or they're wallpaper paste. Let's see...potatoes with huge lumps in them, potatoes that have turned into paste through excess mashing, and potatoes that are cement-like in texture. None are edible.

[WolverineDG]

80. The bagged crap sets to the consistency of concrete if you don't keep stirring it

yeah, that's something I'd want my kid to shovel in his mouth. :eyes:

What you want your kid to eat: List Of Ingredients

Potatoes, maltodextrin, shortening powder (partially hydrogenated soybean oil, lactose, sodium caseinate, dipotassium phosphate), partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (cottonseed, soybean), mono and diglycerides, artificial flavor, artificial color, vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Freshness preserved with sodium bisulfite & BHT
CONTAINS MILK INGREDIENTS.

versus Real Mashed Potatoes: potatoes, milk, butter, salt

And you missed the episode where he prepared a dish with SEVEN veggies & was told it wasn't healthy, but the regular school meal that had fries (with an "optional" salad no kid opted for) WAS healthy. IMO, he came in armed with what passes for nutrition in the real world where sane people live as opposed to the "nutritional" guidelines cooked up by the lunatics in charge of the school lunch program.


dg

[jmowreader]

96. I watched that episode, thank you very much

He prepared a dish with seven veggies and was told there weren't enough vegetables in the meal to qualify for reimbursement--which, as a Title I school system, this place can't do without. She was right, too--he wasn't serving enough vegetables, and it wasn't the first time he went afoul of the standard. Remember in Episode 1 where he tried to get away with only serving one serving of bread?

Let's cut the shit and go straight to the source: West Virginia's Standards for School Nutrition, West Virginia State Board Policy 4321.1. This is at

http://wvde.state.wv.us/policies/p4321.1.pdf

Section 4.3.1 says a school lunch in WV will provide at least a third of the students' RDA for calories, protein, calcium, iron and vitamins A and C; limit calories from fat to no more than 30%; sodium is limited to 1100mg; there will be at least 6g naturally occurring dietary fiber; they will offer water to the students; there will be no artificial sweeteners; and the meal will meet the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans. (Another place where he ran afoul of the rules--they were supposed to have the analyses of his dishes before he fed them to people.)

4.3.2 covers pregnant and lactating students. Maybe if 4.3.3 covered the proper use of condoms 4.3.2 wouldn't be necessary, but there it is.

So here's the minimum state requirements, and we're bitching about the high school feeding so we'll concentrate on it.

1-1/4 cup fruit or vegetable, at least 1/2 cup must be fresh
2 oz meat or meat alternative; at least 1/2 cup beans, dried peas or lentils (IOW a meatless meal) must be served once a week).
11 servings of grains per week. One serving of bread per day, one of something else.
8 oz milk, 1 percent or 0 percent butterfat

Minimum state requirements for breakfast, which all WV schools are required to offer, include 8 oz milk, 1/2 cup fruit or vegetable, either two servings of bread/bread alternate (toast and cereal, for instance) or a serving of bread and one of protein. (This makes pizza America's perfect breakfast food, whether Mr. Oliver cares to admit it or not--it's got a serving of bread and a serving of protein in every slice. If made with fat free cheese--I have a shitload of this in stock--and LOTS of sauce, I think it's fine. I'm serious. What is the difference, in real life, between handing a kid two ounces of fat free cheese and two slices of bread, and handing the same kid a piece of cheese pizza made from two ounces of bread dough and two ounces of fat free cheese? Well, besides the fact the pizza has lycopenes in it which the bread and cheese don't, and the pizza will leave the lunchroom in the kid instead of in the trash.)

The biggest problem I see with this is potatoes: the USDA has them in the "vegetable group" rather than the rice and pasta group, even though they're a starch. Were the feds to declare potatoes to be equivalent to rice (which would let them use potatoes as part of the 11 servings of grains per week rather than the 1-1/4 cup of fruit or vegetable) West Virginia would follow, and no one here would have a single complaint about this food plan. Maybe add something like "fried potatoes may be served one time per week" just to keep the french fries off the daily menu.

Oh, I also found a list of ingredients for margarine, which a LOT of people use in mashed potatoes. Low Calorie Sunflower Spread consists of liquid soybean oil, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, water, salt, monoglycerides, lecithin, potassium sorbate, antioxidants (BHA, BHT, TBHQ), butter flavor, vitamins A, D and E, sodium alginate, citric acid and beta carotene. So let me see...I can mash real potatoes with margarine and have a long laundry list of weird crap in them, or I can buy this joint compound shit and have the million items of weird crap. Now...they actually sell mashed potatoes frozen in a retort pouch--throw it in water, boil the shit out of it for 20-30 minutes, fish it out, pour it in a pan and set it on the steam table. The only place you'd ever see mashed fresh potatoes in a foodservice operation is the Army or a VERY fancy restaurant, and you only see them there because the mess sergeants of the world don't have to worry about personnel costs and the high-end chefs of the world are making enough money to cover the cost of mashing potatoes in house.

[WolverineDG]

98. The standards make no sense

Exceptions are made so that short-cuts can be taken & the precious kiddies can keep on eating the same junk that's making them fat in the first place.

Who serves bread with rice? and if a certain # of veggies are required to make a meal "healthy," why is the salad, which makes junk burgers & fries "healthy," optional? If it's required, make them eat it. And how could YOU figure out that he wasn't serving 1-1/4 cups of veggies? Why not say, "Okay, we'll count the salad no one's going to eat anyway as part of your meal too" if it's so damn important.

And who said anything about margarine? You're not supposed to cook with that crap anyway. But nice attempt to look like a "concerned parent" by throwing that in there to justify preferring that your kid eat cement.

dg

[jmowreader]

104. I'm going by what the nutrition head said re. the vegetable quantity

I'm making a guess here but she does NOT appear to have been driving a front-end loader last week. If you've been in foodservice for a while you know what a certain amount of product is supposed to look like.

I have no idea why the salad isn't a required part of the meal. You'd think it would be.

As for what's making those kids fat, it's not ALL the school's fault, y'know? I saw that first episode where he went into the house of the family who boils everything in oil. He opened the freezer and it was FULL of Totino's Party Pizzas. Which, more than likely, were being considered a single serving. Those were not small people. They didn't get that way simply by eating school lunch crap. I loved that one scene at the school where he brought out the box of formed pork riblets, held one up and demanded to know if the cooks would eat them--and they all would.

I agree with you on the margarine, but tell that to the Unwashed Masses--a piece of documentation I read once says 65 percent of all margarine sold at retail is spread on breads and 10 percent is used to top other foods...which means 25 percent of it is going SOMEWHERE and I don't think people are greasing door hinges with it. (Remember: I'm the crazy man who promotes eating lard.) Remember when I described the difference between the two I said "almost"? The ONLY reason I cook convenience crap at all is my wife refuses to eat fresh foods unless they've been fried. I have no idea why. The only way I can get salad into her is to dump a ton of mayo over it. But she'll fucking slurp down some instant mashed taters, I'm here to tell ya.

So let's throw out a little conjecture: Assume the State came in tomorrow and told them, no more dried potatoes. Fresh only. Tell me exactly how five people cook 250 pounds of mashed potatoes without some extra equipment, like a thousand-dollar automatic potato peeler, a floor mixer (whipped potatoes would be fine) and another couple of steam-jacket kettles. For some items the benefits of fresh don't outweigh the logistics of getting to that point. According to http://west-virginia.educationbug.org/public-schools/ there are 820 public schools in the state of West Virginia. (We won't bring up places like Washington State with its 2283 schools or California with its 9324. You can buy a Univex G-Peeler for $1380 and peel 20 pounds of spuds in three minutes, or the whole batch in less than an hour including loading and unloading the machine. So tell me: where are you going to get $1.13 million to buy 820 potato peelers? And that's not counting the $10.4 million it's going to cost for the new steam jacketed kettles they need to cook the potatoes. I'm not adding in the cost of planetary mixers because most cafeterias should have one. Just the equipment to peel and cook the potatoes is going to cost you nearly $12 million. Schools are in such financial straits right now, teachers buy construction paper for their own students because the schools can't afford to buy it. If the West Virginia school system can't afford 840 rolls of construction paper at $32 per roll (less than 20 potato peelers, incidentally) I have NO idea where they're going to get twelve million dollars to buy potato cooking equipment.

Jamie had two advantages when he redid the English school lunch program: fewer schools than they have in the US, and no Republican Party. In this country, if John Boehner finds a nickel in his couch cushions he paints himself orange and runs in front of the camera screaming about how this nickel's presence in Washington proves we need more tax cuts. I doubt they do that in England.

[darkstar3]

10. Has anyone commenting so far

even considered the implications of Oliver's failure to meet budgetary constraints?

This article brings to light two VERY big problems regarding what we feed our children:

1. REAL food...HEALTHY food...the kind of food we SHOULD be feeding everyone in this country, costs quite a bit more to make in bulk than simple carbs like mac&cheese.
2. Thanks to the funding currently provided to most schools in America, they don't have the cash on hand to actually GET that healthy food.

Dice it, slice it, process it, and stuff the bits no one REALLY wants to eat in a can, then it's dirt cheap. Bread the fuck out of that and flash fry it in oil that costs something like $.20/gallon, and what do you get? Salty, fatty, and somehow addictive Chicken McNuggets which you can't make for any cheaper at home.

In short, it's not that CHILDREN in this country eat like shit, it's that people who lack the proper FUNDING eat like shit because it frees up their budget to pay things like rent, or in the case of schools to be able to afford just to keep the lights on.

[rucky]

11. ...

my new favorite infographic

[darkstar3]

12. That's EXACTLY what I'm talking about.

At least, part of what I'm talking about...government subsidies are just the tip of the iceberg for the school lunch problems...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

26. It's not terribly honest.

Considering that most of a big mac is bread and lettuce.

[Ikonoklast]

40. I just saw that there's actually meat in a Big Mac.

Never knew that.

[Hannah Bell]

29. which is why a lot of veg & fruit these days are outsourced from latin america

[GoCubsGo]

52. Vegetables and fruit are "outsourced" from Latin America because...

People demand fresh produce in the middle of winter, when everything is out of season in this country.

[Mimosa]

54. Quality canned items are nutritious.

That's what regular people and school cafeterias relied upon in the good old days.

[alarimer]

24. This is the big problem.

He also failed to meet dietary guidelines, in many cases.

Schools are cutting funding for everything these days. They serve what they do because it is cheap. If there were other options, I am sure they would be doing it.

[AwakeAtLast]

25. And it takes MORE PEOPLE to make it

By making a few changes in my school corporation's menu (meaning buying frozen processed over make from scratch) they cut two cafeteria workers per building!

[Lorien]

33. And sports. Don't forget the sports. nt

[SocialistLez]

73. +100!!

[Motown_Johnny]

16. Do we have any link to exactly what the requirements were?

I have a degree in Culinary Arts and it included some nutrition classes. I would love to take a closer look at exactly what happened.

From reading the article it sounds to me like he took the wrong approach. Serving fare usually found in three star restaurants won't work. People who eat out in places like that are treating themselves and not eating healthy.


He should have just stuck to making the foods kids like but doing it with the healthiest ingredients possible.

[Missy Vixen]

19. Okay, I'll jump in here

I've been watching the "Food Revolution" with a lot of interest. After all, we've all heard more than a little about Michael Pollan's books, "Food, Inc" and the fact that many Americans eat a diet of junk/processed food because it's all they can afford.

>He should have just stuck to making the foods kids like but doing it with the healthiest ingredients possible.<

The healthiest ingredients possible are very expensive. I should also mention that one of the staples of childhood, peanut butter, is now either outright banned or unavailable at schools around the country.

There is no budget in the school lunch program for employees to cook from scratch, which would be required to serve the "healthiest ingredients possible". As we're seeing above, Jamie Oliver is running into a buzzsaw.

Teachers are currently fighting having their union busted at the least. There is NEVER enough money for things like books or technology upgrades. Why would schools be spending even more of their budgets to serve more nutritious lunches? The entire public school system is under attack. It's not just the food.

IMHO, YMMV.

[OnyxCollie]

35. I'm guessing peanut butter was banned because of allergic reactions,

rather than economic or dietary concerns.

[WolverineDG]

23. Catch the first episode on Hulu

and if you're not scraping your jaw off the floor when you find out that processed, crappy looking pizza & fries is considered to be more healthy than freshly prepared chicken & rice, you need to go back to nutrition class.

And my mom made chicken & rice all the time; he's not serving fare found in three-star restaurants.

dg

[grasswire]

64. you haven't watched the series, obviously

Jamie did EXACTLY what you recommend. Made foods that kids like, with the healthiest ingredients possible.

DAMN.

Inform yourself before you comment.

[WolverineDG]

20. Those "guidelines" say that french fries are healthy

& freshly prepared veggies are not. And the kids don't like the food because it's not the crap they were served before.

:eyes:

dg

[SoCalDem]

21. Nor surprising at all.. If a child has coca-cola in his baby bottle

and his first solid food is Kraft Mac n cheese & mashed up hot dogs, what can you expect.

stuff that used to be occasional treats have morphed into daily diets, and kids like what they like.

Many parents feel guilty for not having much time with their kids, so of course they will try to feed them "what they like"...and tired parents who are in a super-hurry, often do what seems easiest.

Until it becomes second-nature, meal planning takes time & effort, and lots of parents don't have either..and then there's money..

a cheap-o drive thru happy meal is no substitute for a "good meal" but kids do like them and it does fill a belly.:(

At my high school (back in the stone age..'67 grad), our "lunch ladies" arrived about 3 AM, and started baking & prepping.. My friend's Mom was one, and her shift was 3-noon.. there was another shift that arrived at 9 AM and they worked until 3 PM (they helped serve & cleaned up & prepped for the next day). But then we had REAL food.

The elementary & junior highs did not have as vast of a selection, but they too had real food, prepped by real cooks.

[Lorien]

34. Same in the 1970's. Hell, most kids that I knew then only were allowed

fast food on birthdays, or if they got straight "A's" on a report card. Both parents worked but everyone still had home cooked meals. As a latchkey kid I was often the one to cook them!

[SoCalDem]

36. Cake was on birthdays..chips were for picnics

cokes were a real treat..no one wanted to lug those glass bottle around:)

If you wanted pie, you peeled apples & made one

french fries?? I think I had my first french fry when I was 17 ..Kansans were BIG on mashed potatoes:) but until a "Sandy's" opened and then a "Topper Jr", no one bothered with hamburgers.

I don't recall having a hamburger until then either..

We did make sloppy joes, meatloaf & pocupines with ground beef.

we ate stuff like:
pork chops
roast beef
catfish
pork roast
fried chicken
baked chicken
meatloaf

[Lorien]

37. We ate a lot of salads, pasta dishes, lentils and beans, grilled veggies, fresh fruit

meat was expensive and our mom who raised us loved animals, so we didn't see that much of it. Probably a good thing.

[WolverineDG]

43. You could count on getting candy only 3 or 4 times a year

Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Valentine's Day. *MAYBE* your birthday.

My mom didn't buy cokes for us unless we were going to the beach or camping. We rarely had dessert. If we wanted something sweet, we could have a piece of fruit. (in fact, that was the one thing we didn't have to ask permission for--she let us graze on bananas, apples, & whatever else she had around). We very rarely went out to eat, unless it was someone's birthday & we'd always go to a steak house. Fast food or pizza? Maybe once a month.

Salad with dinner every night, meat that Dad grilled outside, a couple of veggies to round things out. And yes, my mom worked too. We took our lunch to school, except for hamburger day, and drank milk or whatever juice Mom put in our thermos.

dg

[Lydia Leftcoast]

61. And we didn't have treats every time we turned around either

When I was growing up, we had our "Friday night treat," which we would eat while watching TV. It was popcorn (popped from corn kernels in a popcorn popper and topped with a bit of real butter) in the winter and ice cream in the summer.

That, birthday parties, and holidays, were IT for treats.

My dad had grown up with desserts, and my mom hadn't, and when my dad wanted dessert, my mom would open a can of peaches. Seriously.

[WolverineDG]

66. My dad would make popcorn often

not every night, usually on Saturday nights when the Saturday Night Movie was on (McCloud, etc), stuff we would all watch together. If you were really really good, he'd let you pour in the butter & salt before he shook it all up. :)

Fast forward to today when parents take kids to convenience stores & let them buy doritos & Dr Pepper for breakfast!

dg

[Duer 157099]

84. Mmmmm, my fondest memory of cafeteria food from grade school

was the chocolate pudding served in those white pleated paper cups, with a nice pudding skin on top. Mmmmmm! I remember getting to work in the cafeteria in 5th grade, and the reward was a cup of pudding.

[MountainLaurel]

92. Isn't that the truth of it?

I think the soda in baby bottles is the perfect metaphor and example of this mentality.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. Doesn't really hold up.

The meals were over budget because the budget is dirt poor, which is why they serve frozen bulk rib meat shit.

They didn't meet the nutritional requirements, because the nutritional requirements are bullshit. They don't accept rice as a substitute for bread, but they will accept pizza crust.

And they didn't like the new food because they're getting pizza for breakfast and ice cream for lunch.

As for the show failing, I'd guess it's a combination of nobody wanting to watch a bunch of fucking stupid ass slobs who deserve their diabetes and heart attacks, and Oliver's maudlin crap.

[gvstn]

31. You've summed up the show!

Oliver's maudlin crap is the problem. A little too much of poor "name/XXXX" is going to die of diabetes before he is twenty years old...

It gets boring. I did love the first episode where the kids looked at the vegetables so earnestly trying to guess the names. LOL

My thoughts, a little less drama and a little more information explaining how ludicrous the federal guidelines are in rejecting a perfectly good meal and repeating that finding would be helpful.

Corporations spend lots of time and money figuring out the perfect balance of salt, sugar and fat to make their product taste good and hit the perfect mark in telling our brains that they are getting a good deal/satisfied. A Taco Bell soft taco tastes good and has starch, vegetables and meat but is not really a balanced meal. Too much hidden fat. The cumulative effect is the problem. Hammer the point and get people to realize that fatty food is a treat rather than a meal.

If you give yourself 3 weeks you can lose the taste for salt, sugar of fried fat/oil in your diet. I still like all of these flavors but it really is a matter of what you are accustomed to. You can lose the taste for them and kids can certainly learn to reject too much of a good thing.

Oliver has the right idea but the show is a little too heavy handed. It shouldn't be about you are going to die if you don't eat right. It should be about you will feel better if you eat right.

[MattBaggins]

57. Food Revolution is already having it's post-mortem written

yet Man v. Food is in it's third season.

People complain about health care in our country?

[SocialistLez]

74. The timing for the show sucks

Some people actually go out on Fridays........

[Name removed]

88. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

97. Sure.

Just don't call me one of those fat lazy fucks that are on that show.

[BlooInBloo]

28. Fine. So give them more money. Problem solved.

[Missy Vixen]

46. There isn't any more money to give

You might want to check into what's happening in your local school district nowadays.

[MattBaggins]

58. Do the subsidies to the wrong food industries have anything to do with

the crap being the cheap stuff?

[Arugula Latte]

69. And yet, we spend 53 percent of our taxes to benefit military contractors.

Go figure.

[Missy Vixen]

72. I'm not saying it's right. I'm saying this is how it is.

It's unfair to demand that people make "better choices" when we can't even afford those choices in our children's classrooms, or the school cafeteria.

NOTHING will change, as long as the priorities of this nation do not change.

[Ian David]

39. In High School we had a "Diet Simulator" program we had to use for an assignment in Biology Class.

None of us could get a complete, balanced diet that fit all the guidelines.

Except for me.

The program had just about every food imaginable that you could program in, but I couldn't get the right amount of zinc, calcium and protein without going over the limit on fat and/or cholesterol.

Fortunately, the program allowed you to enter nutritional values for foods that it did not have in the database.

I created an entry called "Manna" which was a miracle food with no fat, no cholesterol, but just enough protein, calcium and zinc to bring my diet plan up to acceptable levels.

Fortunately, our homework was to turn-in the final, printed spreadsheet of our diet, which did NOT list the foods we'd used-- just the final nutritional outcomes.

In other words, I had hacked The Kobayashi Maru.

If my teacher had asked, I would have had to come clean. But he never did ask.

And it turns out that in order to get an A, we didn't need a perfect diet anyway, so the hack didn't really effect my grade either way.

[BlooInBloo]

47. "affect".

[Ian David]

48. Thanks

Can you give me a sentence using the word affect?
In: Business and Finance, Example Sentences

Answer
effect or affect?
Affect means to have an influence on something. Effect is the result of the influence. Affect is a verb, and effect is a noun.
Compare:

* That experience affected me very much. affect
* That experience had a strong effect on me. effect

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_you_give_me_a_sentence_using_the_word_affect

[joe_sixpack]

91. Excellent story.

Brilliant idea. Kudos from another Star Trek nerd.

[Rage Inc.]

49. Brits & Food

What could possibly go wrong??? :silly:

[Mimosa]

59. Wanh Hanh Haaaaanh!!!

That's funny! LOL

[Arugula Latte]

70. That might have been the case 10 or 15 years ago...

but the Brits have made great strides in food and eating. London has some of the best restaurants on the planet.

(I know you were just being facetious, though.)

[Stevenmarc]

51. nutritional requirements? Who the fuck do you think wrote those.

When a whole lot of processed crap beats out cooking fresh food then you have to wonder who wrote the rules. Could it possibly be that very large food corporations that make all the processed crap who have the money to push their agenda in DC are the ones that create the nutritional requirements so that their products seem to appear tailor made for them.

[WolverineDG]

55. as well as school administrators

who'd rather dump all their money into high profile sports & spend as little as possible on school lunches.

dg

[Lydia Leftcoast]

62. Yes, for example, if I ate mostly grains all day, even whole grains,

the weight would really pile on. I know because I tried it once.

I limit grains to one serving per day most days, and that keeps my weight steady.

[Mimosa]

53. How much money is allowed for each meal?

When I was growing up in the South (mainly GA) I attended both public and parochial schools. The schools had cafeterias which provided good meals cooked on site. There were some agricultural subsidy foods used. But we often had good meals for 25 cents a day in elementary school, 50 cents in high school. We'd get baked chicken, mashed potatoes, yams, turkey and dressing, green beans,peas and carrots, lasagna, salad, slaw, hamburgers, hot dogs and baked beans on a casual day (sometimes we got to eat outdoors), spaghetti with meat sauce, salads with fresh tomatoes in season, veg soup, gumbo, chili and corn muffins, banana cream pudding with vanilla wafers, fruit salad in jello, all sorts of good items.

There were adequate cafeteria staffs to prep and serve. This was in the late 50s and through the 60s. After the 1960s it seems everything changed. But when i was living in the New Orleans area before Katrina the school lunch menus published in the local papers sounded similar, except there'd be good stuff like jambalaya, fried fish and red beans and rice mentioned. :D

[Bluenorthwest]

65. The honesty level of this OP is very low

For example, the ending quote that 'milk drinking evaporated by 25%' does not note that they were previously given sweetened, flavored, high sugar content dairy beverages, and when they were given actual milk, 25% of them whined about it and wanted the choco milk back again. How is that Oliver's failure?
When given actual milk rather than flavored sweetened milk, some kids refuse it. Stunning! Better haul out the corn syrup and make 100% of the kids drink that, although 75% like the real milk just fine, that the sugar water lovers are wrong to like the sugar water....

[WolverineDG]

67. What's shocking is the attitude of the school lunch administrator & the state person she called

basically BFD if the flavored milk is full of sugar; it's more important that the kiddies get calcium. :crazy:

dg

[jmowreader]

81. Y'know, it wouldn't HAVE to be full of sugar...

It is thoroughly possible for our Department of Education to come up with a flavored milk recipe that's got no HFCS and half or even a third the sugar of the current mix. It would be plenty sweet enough. The kids would like it, And you get manufacturers to use it by telling them no federal school lunch funds can be used to buy flavored milk not made by the formula. What would it cost for the research? Five thousand, ten thousand? We're already paying bureaucrats. We've already GOT research dairies at major universities--NC State has one, the University of Wisconsin's got one...--so the equipment's no problem. And the test subjects are easy to come up with--you put an ad in the paper asking people to come to the University on Saturday for free chocolate milk and cookies and to see the research farm, and you'd have so many takers you'd have to turn them away.

The dairy would benefit too...sugar costs money, kids, and these days the little containers of chocolate milk and plain milk are the same price.

Why am I the only one who can figure this shit out? You don't like the way things are? FIX them!

On edit: I pulled up the Nutrition Facts for chocolate and for regular milk.

Chocolate milk, don't know the brand: 226 calories of which 78 are from fat, 8.6g total fat, 24mg cholesterol, 154mg sodium, 31.7g total carbs of which 32.2g is sugar, and 8.6g protein.
Whole milk: 146 calories of which 71 are from fat, 8g total fat, 24mg cholesterol, 98mg sodium, 13g carbs of which all are sugar, and 8g protein.

Scratching my head here...it seems there are about 2 tablespoons of sugar in a cup of chocolate milk. I own some organic milk and some cocoa powder. Give me a little bit and I'm going to make some chocolate milk from scratch with a LOT less sugar than the industrial product, and see how it is.

[WolverineDG]

82. How's about not serving dessert milk at all?

You only get one choice: white milk. Want chocolate milk? Go talk to your mom, kid.

dg

[grasswire]

103. simple solutions like that exist

Example: Jamie was told that the program couldn't continue because there was no $ for training lunch ladies to cook the "new" way.

Why not use volunteers to assist in kitchens?

Why not hire employees who already know how to saute and prep and bake?

Why not implement a curriculum in the HS that utilizes HS students as culinary apprentices?

There are lots of possible solutions, if the bureaucracy will only bend just a tiny bit.

[Saboburns]

85. I've taught in Cabell County WV Schools for the past 19 years

The shit the school system passes off for lunch and breakfast is horrible. It's exactly the food you go get out of your supermarket freezer and microwave that's is full of all the bullshit preservatives and salt. And it tastes like shit as well.

But it's cheaper to buy the shit and the kids prefer eating the shit. Because that's exactly the same shit they eat at home.

Now.

The fattest town in America eating shitty processed food.

And so many on this thread are complaining about Jamie Oliver attempting to change the status quo. He's simply trying to get real fresh food into the mix. He's doing the school's in an attempt to change the environment.

Tell you what go down to your local school and eat the shit they serve for breakfast and lunch for 6 weeks and then get back to me.


Oh yeah weigh in and then weigh out.

I have 19 years experience I know what I'm talking about.

[underpants]

87. My family is from Milton

spreas out to Hurricane ( you know how to pronounce it), Pea Ridge, Huntington etc.

this story started a while ago with a story about how Huntington was the unhealthiest city in America. They didn't take it well.

Oliver jumped into the lion's den and got bit hard-from both the proud locals (GO HERD!) and from the food companies who simply couldn't let this go unquestioned.

I read how Oliver was attacked about this when he did a show in England. Some of that is PR (and some of this might be) but the food powers, not the food people, have to fight back and they have lots of our money with which to do it.

oh and ... GO HERD!

[Saboburns]

95. Damn straight on the GO HERD

sister

[ikri]

89. And yet it worked fine in England's schools when he tried the same

(and before anyone else wants to add some shit about how all British food is awful, you can try looking at the food that's being served.)

He had the same issues with budgets and kids refusing to eat more healthy food and yet his campaign did work & school lunch menus in England have vastly improved.

[Odin2005]

102. "Nutritional Requirements" = pro-Agribusiness garbage.

The emphasis in carbohydrates in the food pyramid is all about pleasing Big Ag.