Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

[Malakili]

You do have a good point here, but I wonder how sticky the message is when it goes against everything a kid is learning in the home.  

My feeling is kids aren't really learning anything about food at home.  I mean, this is basically what school IS.  We teach kids about things we think are important.  We do it with math and reading and writing, and even music and phys. ed.   I really do think we should be adding food to that list from a young age, and while it isn't going to clean up all problems over night no fuss no muss, I think kids having a basic idea of what food actually is would go a long way to helping.   If you've seen the show you know there are kids who can't even identify common vegetables when they are shown them, simple stuff like this which just generally increases awareness of food as a thing worth thinking about is at the very least a good starting point.

[Ironwood]

Elena is four and cooks with me.  She knows all about food.  The idea that it's something that should be taught in a school instead is nuts.  Like all learning, it should be done both at home AND at school or otherwise you're just teaching your child to learn some pretty unimportant shit.

[Malakili]

Elena is four and cooks with me.  She knows all about food.  The idea that it's something that should be taught in a school instead is nuts.  Like all learning, it should be done both at home AND at school or otherwise you're just teaching your child to learn some pretty unimportant shit.

So just fuck the kids that don't get it at home?  I know you aren't saying that but seriously, what other way do "we" have to teach kids this stuff when they aren't already getting it at home but to teach it in school?

[Ironwood]

Clearly the meaning of the word 'both' eludes you.

[Malakili]

Clearly the meaning of the word 'both' eludes you.

Clearly you meant both, but you made it sound like its not worth doing it in school if its not also done at home and I think that is not the right way to approach.  OBVIOUSLY in the best case scenario it would be taught in both places, but we aren't dealing with the best case scenario in most places.

[NowhereMan]

Instead America gets to deal with shit like Palin responding to a drive for healthier foods by crying about removing parental choice and then coming in and giving all the kids doughnuts without bothering to consult the parents.

Before I drive this into politics that's not a dig at right wing types but it seems indicative of a lot of people's reactions to being told that they're doing things wrong and especially if you tell someone they're raising their children wrong. Even if you have mountains of evidence and plenty of general common sense, tell someone that what they feed their child, happily and voluntarily, is killing the child they hear it not as an attempt at education but as you shouting, "You evil person you are deliberately tortuting your child!" Add to that parents that think whether or not their child is happily eating the food they're given is the only reliable indicator of whether it's the right kind or amount of food and you've got a massive uphill battle in education. Frankly aside from the budget and systemic issues he faces and ignoring the fact that he can be a preachy douchebag this is the thing Jamie seems to manage, at least in small communities where he gets face time. Not sure if he'll manage it as well with a city of millions.

[Mrbloodworth]

And thus we have the plot to the show.

[NowhereMan]

I assume that he does actually win people over and not just edit out anyone he failed to convince by episdoe 8 or whatever. Though in small communities that's the kind of thing you can do with pluck and grit, whether the formula has an even remotely similar effect in a much larger community is going to be an interesting test. I'm sure they'll spin it as a success either way but if he can genuinely have an effect on the parents there's a chance they can have an effect on the system. Fuck it would be hard but if you get 70% of parents sending their kids in with packed lunches there would be serious questions raised about why the government was shovelling so muich money into these food contractors.

[K9]

Elena is four and cooks with me.  She knows all about food.  The idea that it's something that should be taught in a school instead is nuts.  Like all learning, it should be done both at home AND at school or otherwise you're just teaching your child to learn some pretty unimportant shit.

It seems tied up into a whole range of social issues which lazy parents try to palm off onto schools. A lot of the points raised here could equally be applied to things like sexual education, manners and respect. It is depressing that there are parents who feel that they can pass off these aspects of education onto schools. Schools should do their level best not to undo what parents might teach their kids, but it has to be a partnership.

[Paelos]

Only in this country can we make feeding children a political problem.

[Merusk]

It's not just "lazy parents."  We're on the 2nd generation of two-income parents and latchkey kids.  (3rd in some cases.)  Kids who were raised by schools expect schools to be able to do it for their kids as well.  The biggest difference being schools just don't have the funds to do it anymore.

[Khaldun]

Only in this country can we make feeding children a political problem.

Right. In a substantial number of other countries, children simply don't get fed. Problem solved.

I mean, yeah, school lunches and much else under these headings pose serious issues, but the Victorian-spinsteresque pearl-clutching and self-righteous "I do everything right, why do we have so many lazy people" sociology-by-anecdote that food issues seem to inspire is a more interesting phenomenon and a bigger underlying issue than food policy itself.

[Ironwood]

Elena is four and cooks with me.  She knows all about food.  The idea that it's something that should be taught in a school instead is nuts.  Like all learning, it should be done both at home AND at school or otherwise you're just teaching your child to learn some pretty unimportant shit.

It seems tied up into a whole range of social issues which lazy parents try to palm off onto schools. A lot of the points raised here could equally be applied to things like sexual education, manners and respect. It is depressing that there are parents who feel that they can pass off these aspects of education onto schools. Schools should do their level best not to undo what parents might teach their kids, but it has to be a partnership.

I agree entirely.

[Khaldun]

Just to follow the sidetrack a bit further, do you guys all feel as if this balance between school and family and educational responsibilities thereof was somehow better managed at some specific point in the past in your nation/community? Because ok, my folks were great on this score and I feel like I'm firmly doing what I ought to be doing in teaching my kid skills and responsibilities. But as a mid-40s person, I don't look back to the late 60s-early 70s and say, "Wow, everybody back then really shouldered their burdens and taught their kids all the things they needed to teach them." As someone who studies history, I don't see any evidence for looking back further and finding a happy old world where by gum families taught kids how to properly grind coffee beans for top-quality espresso, eat green beans with salsify, and carefully hand-butcher their own chicken. Study up on the history of American food consumption sometime and if you don't come in with preconceptions, you're probably in for surprise. Americans have been eating nutritionally-challenged frozen and canned foods for a long time. Early 20th C. Chicago grew up as the Second City on the strength of a massive warren of industrial cattle butchery that would make the worst factory farm today look like a locavore's dream, and the nation ate the filthy meat that spewed forth from its bowels with gusto. School lunches in 1970 were just as wretchedly low-grade and fattening as they are now.

The changes in the last thirty years are smaller than you'd think in the US--it basically amounts to corn syrup, more audiovisual home entertainment, hypersuburbanization and excessive fear of roving pedophiles, slightly more disposable income for leisure food, and the disappearance of fresh foods from communities with high amounts of structural poverty.

[Mrbloodworth]

You don't need a historical reference to improve something. Its quite clear our society has a food problem, be it education, lifestyle, or culture. When 10 year olds are getting diabetes, there is a problem, when most applicants to the armed forces are not acceptable due to wight and health, we have a problem.

[Numtini]

I think the "kids won't get fed" thing is something not to be left out. School lunches weren't done to give make kids days fun, they were started because a lot of kids were reckoned to be too hungry to properly learn. In some cases, you are still just plain pushing calories.

As to parents not doing the right things. They didn't do the right things in the 19th century or during Rome's time. Trying to get people to "do it right" is as likely as a game designer making players adhere to their Vision.

I will hand it to the guy, Oliver has started a conversation about the issue. Not just here and I saw the same thing happening last time. I suspect that, not what he's actually doing with the kids, is the important part and most likely to get something done.

[Ironwood]

Nostalgia was better in my day.

[Ratman_tf]

I can eat dinner from that for four days, with some salad sides.

But do you?

[Xanthippe]

The changes in the last thirty years are smaller than you'd think in the US--it basically amounts to corn syrup, more audiovisual home entertainment, hypersuburbanization and excessive fear of roving pedophiles, slightly more disposable income for leisure food, and the disappearance of fresh foods from communities with high amounts of structural poverty.

You're right about all that, but what we're seeing today is a much higher percentage of fat kids, compared to the 60s and before.  Poor nutrition today results in being too fat, not in not having enough to eat, which has been the problem historically since the beginning of time.

Fast food is viewed differently than it used to be.  It's considered a normal necessity rather than a rare treat.  Fast food joints didn't used to be on every corner; they weren't part of a normal family's regular cuisine.  The only indoor entertainment options kids used to have were books, toys and TV - now there are far more interesting options.

But why are adults getting fatter too?  This, I think, is also part of the puzzle.  The proliferation of convenience foods (meaning boxed foods or prepared foods) helps.  Are adults generally less active?  Is it the gradual acceptance of being fat?

[Xanthippe]

I think the "kids won't get fed" thing is something not to be left out. School lunches weren't done to give make kids days fun, they were started because a lot of kids were reckoned to be too hungry to properly learn. In some cases, you are still just plain pushing calories.

As to parents not doing the right things. They didn't do the right things in the 19th century or during Rome's time. Trying to get people to "do it right" is as likely as a game designer making players adhere to their Vision.

I will hand it to the guy, Oliver has started a conversation about the issue. Not just here and I saw the same thing happening last time. I suspect that, not what he's actually doing with the kids, is the important part and most likely to get something done.

Many good points here.

I get that hungry kids can't learn.  But how far down the road of school lunch nutrition do we want to go?  My community is taking it not only to fresh, but to local and organic (some parents want vegan lunches offered). 

That costs oodles.  As a parent, I'm not paying $4 bucks for my kid to have lunch when I can make it for her to take for $2.50, so the school just lost a full-paying customer who helped subsidize the free-lunchers.  And so the overall budget declines because the number of full-payers declines.  Pretty much all the kids who get lunch now are free- or reduced-raters, and nobody pays full price because it's overpriced in order to subsidize the rest.

We have mission creep.  What first begins as "hungry kids can't learn" becomes "food isn't nutritious enough" becomes "we need fresh, local, organic food."

(Aside to Ironwood: when my kids began school, I was far more into tackling the problems for everykid, but years of trying to work with the school administration, home/school club, other parents and so on has beaten me back into just worrying about my own.  Also, how is it possible that Elena is about to start school?  She's not still an adorable infant?)

[Numtini]

Fast food is viewed differently than it used to be.  It's considered a normal necessity rather than a rare treat.  Fast food joints didn't used to be on every corner; they weren't part of a normal family's regular cuisine.  The only indoor entertainment options kids used to have were books, toys and TV - now there are far more interesting options.

We used to go to McDonald's about once a month. It was a 45 minute drive from where I lived and that was where the local "discount supermarket" was and my mother would take me shopping, we'd stock up on stuff from the cheap market, and then go to McDonalds. It was a big deal.

"Two or three years ago... was just another snake cult, now they're everywhere."

I would add into the mix the absolute paranoia about children perhaps sometimes possibly ever hurting themselves as well as the galloping paranoia about child predators. There's very little outside time for children anymore of the type I grew up doing where we just walked around in the woods or played by the local stream. Now what little time there is is entirely organized. If you don't do organized, kids never leave the house because they'll die if they do.

[Mrbloodworth]

Right now, Schools are teaching bad eating habits. Those of you who keep saying its the parents role ( Its both ), have the schools going against anything you are trying to do.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I would add into the mix the absolute paranoia about children perhaps sometimes possibly ever hurting themselves as well as the galloping paranoia about child predators. There's very little outside time for children anymore of the type I grew up doing where we just walked around in the woods or played by the local stream. Now what little time there is is entirely organized. If you don't do organized, kids never leave the house because they'll die if they do.

By today's standards, me, my brothers and all our friends would be considered a pack of juvenile deliquents considering how we roamed our neighborhood and ran around in the woods behind our house.  Fairly large group of kids with about a 10 year age spread, so pre-teens to mid-teens.

[Malakili]

Right now, Schools are teaching bad eating habits. Those of you who keep saying its the parents role ( Its both ), have the schools going against anything you are trying to do.

Yup, its alarming how fast this went from "Schools really need to educate about food and teach good eating habits" to "When I was a kid we played by the STREAM, and no one even CARED."

We're missing the point here.  Big time.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Right now, Schools are teaching bad eating habits. Those of you who keep saying its the parents role ( Its both ), have the schools going against anything you are trying to do.

Yup, its alarming how fast this went from "Schools really need to educate about food and teach good eating habits" to "When I was a kid we played by the STREAM, and no one even CARED."

We're missing the point here.  Big time.

Yes and no on missing the point.  Any thread like this is going to turn into a "back in my day..." one because people will always bring some flavor of personal experience into it, whether it's how they were taught about food as a kid to how other people aren't doing it right.

In honor of that, one thing I have 'trouble" with is how much today's schoolkids seem to be depending on school meals for their daily nutrition.  It's not just lunches anymore, plenty of schools are providing breakfasts as well, which blows my mind.  We have families where kids are eating 2/3 meals at school because otherwise, either the family can't or won't feed them otherwise.  I guess in cases like that, I can see why people want to just push the problem off onto the school districts because that's where they kids eat their most substantial meals, why should the family have to bother changing how they do things then since it's (sometimes) only one meal a day?

[Mrbloodworth]

either the family can't or won't feed them otherwise.  I guess in cases like that, I can see why people want to just push the problem off onto the school districts because that's where they kids eat their most substantial meals, why should the family have to bother changing how they do things then since it's (sometimes) only one meal a day?

We also have ever increasing demands on workers and parents. My mother dropped me off at schools and I didn't see her again till 7pm ( Single mother, two jobs, early to mid 1980's ). I ate breakfast lunch and dinner at school. Its also why I did not know how to cook until I became an adult.

The model family you see on TV is a lie for about 90% of the country.

[Paelos]

I can eat dinner from that for four days, with some salad sides.

But do you?

Currently, yeah. My diet right now is a granola bar in the morning with coffee. Then, at lunch I have a turkey sandwich with lettuce and tomato on whole wheat, baked lays and a diet coke. At 3PM, I have a reduced fat string cheese, 8oz of V8, and a banana. For dinner I have whatever dried beans with lean meat I've made, mixed with brown rice, and I stir in spinach, chopped broccoli, peas/carrots, collard greens, and/or tomatoes.

I mean really, I feel full all day, the whole process is probably $5-6 worth of food a day, and I'm not denying myself what I like.

[Goumindong]

Ok Dr. Atkins.

Sorry, but that is the science. Historical diets did not include grains until about 5,000 years ago. Before that it was all fruits/veggies and meat.

Your body needs a certain amount of carbs to continue working. Specifically your brain consumes them. However; if you do not get those carbs your body can synthesize it from protean. (this is why fasting people lose so much muscle mass so fast. When the body doesn't get the carbs it needs it eats protean, when there is not enough protean coming in, you eat the muscles. After long enough you may enter Ketosis which will let you burn fat, but still probably not enough)

Nothing else in your system needs carbs. Now, this doesn't mean that some people can't use carbs. If you're going to do a lot of exertion very fast, carbs are great. But if you're not, they're pretty bad for you, whole grains or not.

[Paelos]

Ok Dr. Atkins.

Sorry, but that is the science. Historical diets did not include grains until about 5,000 years ago. Before that it was all fruits/veggies and meat.

Pretty sure the Asian population started doing it 10,000 years ago, but whatever. Before that, scientists are guessing we didn't forage for grains because we couldn't break them down. I wouldn't say it's rock-hard or anything.

[Khaldun]

The science is also that human lifespans (and population growth) increased with the advent of cheap carbs & sugar and improved urban sanitation. Contrary to popular belief, improvements in clinical medicine were a latecomer when it comes to explaining why more people survived their first four years of so of life and lived a bit longer on average at the end of life if they did in fact survive.

The interactions between diet, health, economic production, globalization, medicine and so on are really complex. Simple single-variable explanations need not apply, unless they're shilling for a product or a fad diet.

[Goumindong]

No, it really is sugar that is the culprit. Its surprisingly how it can be so single factor.

[Sand]

Price out fresh ingredients sometime. Then stack them up against processed shit. Then consider both in bulk. Then consider the labor time involved in prepping fresh ingredients and bundle that into the cost.

You might learn a few things that will surprise you.

Then compare eating that over processed cheaper crap with the increased cost in medical care and the negative impact on quality of life.

There are any number of things I am willing to sacrifice (time, toys, etc) to make sure I and my family get a balanced healthy meal.

Priorities. Just sayin'.


Edit- Goumindong its "protein" not protean. 

[Nebu]

Food is America's drug of choice.  Many people use it to deal with the fact that they hate their life.  Processing and concentration of calories just feeds into this. 

Think about it.  How many people do you know in your life that a) are stress free and b) love going to work every day.  I work in a field that most people consider their dream job and I only know a scant few balanced and happy people. 

[Malakili]

Then consider the labor time involved in prepping fresh ingredients and bundle that into the cost.

You might learn a few things that will surprise you.

Then compare eating that over processed cheaper crap with the increased cost in medical care and the negative impact on quality of life.

I think this mentality is the real problem.  If you are treating your daily eating habits as something that needs to be thought of in terms of labor/cost etc you are doing it wrong.  Part of this entire discussion is that we need to stop thinking about food in terms of pure consumption, and thinking of it in terms of lifestyle.  Lifestyles which relegate food to cost/benefit analysis seem to have all their priorities fucked up to me.

Maybe I'm just the resident hippy dippy guy, but I simply wouldn't adopt a lifestyle that didn't allow me to eat healthy on a regular basis. 

Edit: Yes I realize this isn't always a choice, the poor can't just simply make that choice, but there are two discussions going on here and I don't get the impression Khaldun is worried that he might not make ends meet if he spends 30 minutes a day on food prep.

[Mrbloodworth]

Like he said in the show "This food lacks respect for the food, and the people eating it".