Jamie Oliver: Teach Every Child About Food

I heard rumblings about this video, shocking things I could barely believe, and now I've come across it and finally seen for myself. Jamie Oliver is a chef who has found his mission: to fight obesity in America by educating children about food. Yes! He states his wish as this: "I wish for everyone to help create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity."

I got into a little discussion with the person who sent me this video - he loves the message, as I do, but we disagree on one point. He thinks it's harder than ever to get away from bad foods laden with salt and sugar. I think it's the same answer as it's always been to do so.

When I was growing up in the 80's, we had fast food and chain restaurants, we had ice cream stands and soda, we had poor nutritional school lunch programs... Everything that exists today. However, I grew up in a household that treated all of those foods as a once-in-a-great-while treat. We had ice cream for dessert once a week, on Fridays, during the summer (and we only had dessert once a week). We had soda only for birthdays, so for my sister and I that meant twice a year. Only my grandmother would take us to McDonalds, which was very infrequent. When we had pizza, it was homemade from scratch with whole wheat crust. We ate dinner together as a family almost every night, and we made our dinners together. We made our own school lunches, and didn't buy from the cafeteria.

The point is, the answer hasn't changed even if the food landscape has (adding sugar to elementary school milk cartons??? Yikes!). Families need to re-evaluate the way they treat food in the home, and how often they go out for prepared food instead of eating at home.

I absolutely applaud Jamie Oliver for embarking on this mission. It is very near to my own mission. I encourage everyone to watch the video... And pass it on.

Augusta