Jamie Oliver has gone to Huntington, VA, a city that was rated the most unhealthy in the US to teach some of the people how to eat and to try to change what they are feeding the children in the elementary schools.
I saw the show and I am very excited to watch the reactions and the outcome. He has gone into an elementary school kitchen to try to improve what they feed the kids. None of the kitchen staff could see what was wrong with feeding children pizza for breakfast and warmed up precooked burgers, pizza, and chicken nuggets for lunch every day. There was absolutely no fresh food in their kitchen. Gone was a grill because they never use it. They don't have an oven. Everything they feed the children is processed and frozen food. They did have a steamer that they used to plump up some dehydrated processed meat into an edible food like substance. They are not given forks and knives because they are "dangerous" and don't need to use them with the food they serve. It's all finger food or food that can be eaten with a spoon. So they are also not learning to use forks and knives.
He went to the classrooms and brought some vegetables for the children to identify. None of those kids new what any of the vegetables were until he mentioned ketchup. Then, they knew what a tomato was. They didn't even know what a potato was. The mashed potatoes served to them at the school were made from dried up things called potato pearls, made from chemicals and some potatoes and water, looked like soupy glue. They all knew what a burger, chicken nugget, and pizza was though. This is what our children are eating every day in the US. This is some scary stuff, "The generation that will die before their parents."
He has found a family, all of whom are extremely overweight, who are willing to learn and let him teach them how to cook and prepare whole foods. The family has a sixth grader who is on the verge of diabetes and a four year old little girl who is on her way too. The first thing he did was bury their deep fat fryer in the back yard. He also set up a kitchen in the town where he can teach people how to cook for free.
He was successful with this effort in London in the school system. I used to enjoy watching him The Naked chef a few years ago and wondered what happened to him. Nice way to surface!
I set the DVR to record this show, this will be fun to watch.
GO JAMIE!
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