The Curvy Nerd

Well, apparently whilst the editors were piecing together five episodes of Jamie Oliver and his pedantic whining, the producers were working their butts off to at least put together a decent finale. And finally we have the first episode of the second season that didn’t make me want to wring Jamie Oliver’s neck! And it’s the last one!

Jamie finally looks to food education, and giving the students of Los Angeles knowledge of how to cook. Bingo, Jamie! Yes, school lunches are terrible, but a HUGE part of the gap, especially in L.A. is knowledge and education.

The show has a new corporate sponsor to support the overhead of a multi-school cooking competition (which includes a trip to New York to the Culinary Institute of America for four students): Green Giant. Normally I would roll my eyes, but I am actually a big fan of Green Giant’s frozen, steamable vegetables, so I’m surprisingly ok with it. If we’re going with lesser of evils when it comes to American corporations producing packaged food, I’ll take frozen veggies over pretty much anything else. (so you win, Green Giant, in terms of gratuitous product mentions and positive publicity!)

We also see some of the lead-in to the other week’s decision to get rid of flavored milk in the LAUSD, with an independent group of parents protesting outside the district office. Jamie meets with the new superintendent of schools, who clearly sees a great opportunity to start off his term with some positive publicity. (it worked) He humors Jamie, and as recent policy changes show (getting rid of milk + breaded, fried foods), makes some changes. Watching, it does seem like things were in motion BEFORE Jamie showed up, so I do buy the LAUSD’s claim that the positive changes aren’t because of Jamie Oliver… but I’m sure the pressure from his show helped a bit.

That said, it’s still more of the same: Jamie Oliver dumbsplaining to the Americans. Srsly: how many times can he pat himself on the back for being the Food Martyr of America (he’s not) because we are Too Dumb To Know About Food?

And overall, that is my problem with Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. I was with him for Jamie’s School Dinners, where he was changing a system in a country with which he was intimately familiar. He was and his show was just so English, and it worked.

But Jamie is not American, and despite being an apparently decent chef, is not clued in to the intricacies and deeply complex issue of food, nutrition and obesity in America… or regulations, budgets and finances here. You know who needs a show? Michelle Obama. Sorry, Jamie: Michelle does it better.

There’s no word yet on whether Jamie will have another season. A year ago, I would have been upset to see Food Revolution cancelled. Now I don’t particularly care, either way. It’s kind of sad, really.

Lord knows why I keep watching this show. Oh, wait, it’s because I passionately believe in kids, nutrition, shitty school lunches and obesity in America. But the show continues to try my patience. This week, I only got six minutes in before I experienced my first moment of RAGE and ran over here to start a blog post.

It started off so well. Jamie goes to a convention of CA lunch reps, who basically call him out on all the reasons they don’t want to work with him (shock tactics, he’s full of himself as a star, ratings). One admin elaborates in a direct-to-camera interview: he doesn’t want Jamie to demonize people like him. Ok. But then he says:

“We dont want to hear anymore that it’s because of us that Americans are fat. No, they are fat because they decided to be fat. Including me.” (this man is large).

COMMENCE RAGE. (also: file this under Even Fat People Believe in FALC)

I know I’m a broken record, but NO. Nobody chooses to be fat, but just to play along a bit, ok. Let’s say American adults “make choices.” Ok. But children. CHILDREN DO NOT AND CANNOT CHOOSE TO BE FAT. They eat what is given to them and learn lifelong food habits, behaviors and attitudes based on what they observe around them. This includes what their parents show them, as well as what the media and advertising sell them. So if kids can’t CHOOSE to be fat, and it’s adults GIVING THEM BAD CHOICES… and those adults were also given BAD CHOICES as children… feedback loop, ipso facto: NO ONE CHOOSES TO BE FAT. Yes, Jamie’s a didactic, dramatic chef with a myopic view of the American obesity crisis, but you, people preparing school lunches, are not absolved of blame. And you don’t get to BLAME FAT PEOPLE FOR BEING FAT. No.

I just… this makes me so tired. No one wants to feel like it’s their fault for getting kids fat. But come on. People serving lunch to children at school… you have to know you’re doing some bad work. Would you eat this food? It’s gross. (and if you do, you’re probably also overweight and unhealthy) In fairness: schools have been lead astray by a lax FDA. There are larger forces at work.

So I’m ready to have Jamie Oliver go away. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. Getting angry at Jamie’s Food Revolution is giving me ulcers

If you want, you can watch the ep in question:

Folks, we have our Jamie’s Food Revolution finale! The Los Angeles United School District has voted to GET RID of flavored milk in its schools.

Of course, the LAUSD won’t let Oliver have this one. From the USA Today article:

Some board members were rankled by the perception that the district was caving in to Oliver, who unsuccessfully lobbied the district to be allowed to film in local schools.

“I really don’t understand why we’re letting a TV chef dictate our policy,” said board member Tamar Galatzan, who noted that many health advocates including the American Heart Association say the nutritional benefits of flavored milk outweigh the harm of added sugar.

So it’s a coincidence that the LAUSD is getting a SHITTY reputation for being short-sighted and truculent on national television and then passed this motion? Ok.

I, for one, am thrilled. I take issue with some of Jamie’s myopic views on nutrition, school lunches and obesity (and this show is really wearing on my nerves something awful), but the one thing I am 100% with him on: flavored milk. In L.A., children get 8 ounces of fat free milk with 20-27 grams of sugar in the chocolate and strawberry flavored varieties. That’s a lot of sugar for 8 ounces, and they’re not even getting the “good fat” of 1% or 2%?! The LAUSD points out that many of the fruit juices they serve have 27-29 grams of sugar per serving… um, dude: SUGARY FRUIT JUICE IS ALSO BAD.

But I digress. If you give kids a choice between “plain” milk and flavored milk, they’re going to choose the flavored milk. Duh. I wasn’t allowed to have flavored milk much as a kid (either because my mom was being nutritionally sound, or we couldn’t afford Nestle strawberry milk mix — who knows!), but when I could get my hands on it OMG WATCH OUT. Naysayers say kids won’t drink plain milk without flavors. I disagree. If you give kids all these “options” and expect them to pick the healthiest one, you are dreaming. Children have no impulse control. They’re children! (srsly: there is fancy brain development stuff to back this up) If they have one option, and it’s a healthy choice? They won’t know any different and they will happily drink the milk.

I’ll close with the last few paragraphs of the USA Today piece. They hit the nail on the head:

“Thirty percent of our kids are obese or are on track to diabetes,” said Jennie Cook of Food for Lunch, a coalition advocating nutritious school food. She has been pushing the district to eliminate flavored milk for the past year. “This is a social justice issue.”

Emily Ventura, a researcher with the University of Southern California’s Childhood Research Center, noted that a number of experts did not recommend flavored milk as a healthy choice. She said 6,000 LAUSD parents had signed a petition to eliminate flavored milk from the district.

Some school districts have opted for a middle road, using natural sweeteners like cane sugar, beet sugar and Truvia to sweeten milks instead of high-fructose corn syrup based flavorings.

But others say children should learn to drink plain milk.

When did ABC move Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution to Fridays? Scheduling/advertising fail! Anyhow, I caught the most recent episode on Hulu, and I have to say: Jamie is starting to lose me.

My apologies that you have to scroll through the full vid, but there’s no clip for the section that BLEW MY MIND WITH FAIL. Skip to the 16:30 mark, where Jamie confronts the owner of Patras with a girl whose parents and little sister both have diabetes. She blames fast food for her family predicament and accuses the fast food restaurants of only caring about money, not people. Jamie rides Deno HARD during the ep about changing his menu to have higher quality beef, and healthier options (a continuation of the theme from the first two eps).

Here is my problem: Patra’s is a family business! This isn’t McDonalds, Burger King, Wendys, Taco Bell, etc. Jamie goes on about how Patra’s can effect change blah blah blah. I’m sorry, but asking a family-owned business to make DRASTIC changes to its menu and raise prices so they are higher than their chain competitors (and in SoCal, that includes the Holy Burger Joint of Awesome, In & Out) is unfair and unrealistic. Deno defends his position, and rightly so: he could possibly lose his business! I’m digusted that, in the interest of a high-drama reality TV show, Jamie confronted this hard-working business man with a girl and her sob story, like it was his fault. Sorry, but no. I’m with Deno.

Our young woman, spurred on by Jamie & the Food Revolution producers, blames fast food for why her entire family is diabetic. Is it likely that a steady diet of McDonalds has contributed significantly to this family’s problems? Yes. But there are other inevitable factors that one must consider, included limited or no access to medical care, buying processed junk at the grocery store, and limited access (or awareness of) affordable fruits & vegetables.

Then Jamie and the young woman go for the victim play: I can’t say no to fast food, so it’s your fault for being there. Deno, rightly so, defends himself. And I say HOLD UP. Am I an individual with some impulse control when it comes to food? Sure. But I will never abdicate personal responsibility when it comes to food choices, and neither should this young woman. You’re SEVENTEEN. You have the absolute choice and right not to eat fast food. You’re not addicted, and no one is making you. The indoctrination from advertising campaigns and the like only go so far. While, yes, chains like McD’s are arguably evil corporations who have some degree of responsibility to provide healthy options on their menus, at the end of the day, it is always someone’s personal choice to eat there.

I stopped frequenting fast food restaurants more than ten years ago. While I will occasionally have a Big Mac (about once a year) or a Whopper (also maybe once a year), when there are other choices I almost always go for them.

Jamie’s Food Revolution is going south, fast. Jamie has a good case for school lunches and general food education. But he needs to stop this stupid crusade against a mom and pop fast food joint. Patras is NOT the gateway to McDonalds, Jamie. And, frankly, their PR machine has already put into effect a massive good will campaign of including healthier menu options, so that part of the job is already done. If you really want to make a difference, how about you start lobbying with the advertising board to ban some of the RIDICULOUS food commercials kids are exposed to every day. Now THAT is a food revolution I’d like to see happen in America.