A FOOD revolution, that is. I don't know how many of you have been watching Jamie Oliver's program or what you think about him and what he's trying to do/how he's trying to do it, but I support healthier lunches in the schools.
For some children, the school breakfast and lunch program provides their main or only sustenance for the day. If food is sacred and a way of nourishing out bodies, our temples, shouldn't we be putting good things into our bodies as often as possible? Pizza and corn is NOT a balanced meal, but it's a staple of the school lunch program back home.
My mom is a cook but she has virtually no control over the planning of the menus. Someone else does that. She is in charge of ordering what's on the menus. On Cook's Choice day, she tries to make things from scratch. Unfortunately there isn't a lot of time to do that these days, nor is there a lot of support from the other employees. People would rather open a box of weird gray "meat" patties from the government than make some spaghetti with freshly made tomato sauce. It does happen from time to time, however.
What do you remember about school lunches? Here are some of the offerings I can recall:
Pizza and corn
Hot dogs with tater tots and a piece of sugary cake for dessert
Pepperoni rolls - it's a WVa thing and you can't fuck with the pepperoni roll, but a couple of times a month is plenty!
Fatty, grisly chicken nuggets with instant mashed potatoes, salty instant gravy, and canned green beans that were cooked within an inch of their lives.
Sounds great, doesn't it? And in this day and age, people have less time and children are even more picky than before. What's to be done? Well, I don't know how much it will help, but I for one have signed Jamie's petition and am going to sport his badge on my blog.
For more information, visit: http://www.jamieoliver.com/jfr-beta/petition.php#petForm
6 comments:
I've been watching in. Huge kudos to Jamie for giving a sh*t and doing something about it. I've yet to decide how I want to implement his revolution in my own life, but I'm working on it.
As a former victim of the American public school system & their lunches, I will hug & kiss Jamie if I ever meet him. Does anyone wonder why obesity is such a prevalent problem in youth today??? It starts with what people are feeding their kids which turns into what kids feel they should be eating, which is generally NOT what is good for them. Uber kudos, Jamie, and THANK YOU!
As for my memories of school lunches... My all time favorite used to be Nacho Day... A tub of chips drenched in fake "cheese" (and I use this term VERY loosely...). My least favorite was when they'd serve mini hot dogs... (we'd bounce them down the tables instead of eating them)or waffles/pancakes... the waffles were soggy & the pancakes were hard (and therefore used for frisbees... XD)All in all, we enjoyed playing with our food much more than eating it.
I've been watching Jamie as well. I totally support what he's doing and hopefully the right people will get on board and support him as well.
It saddens me a bit though that we have many world famous chefs here in the states, and not one of them took the initiative that Jamie did. Makes me wonder, why it took someone from "across the pond" to open up our eyes. Thank goodness though that Jamie took the risk, and came here to help.
When I went to elementary school, we had to bring our own lunches, or go to the candy store around the corner for knishes or the pizzeria a block away. In high school, we didn't have a cafeteria. We ate in the auditorium, which they would bring in these heated carts (think ice cream street vendor but for hot food type thing). Our daily offering, always the same was Jamaican beef pies, burger with or without cheese, Grandma's Old Fashion cookies, and to drink was either milk or chocolate milk. One could of course brown bag it. But we weren't allowed off the grounds to get anything else either. There was a McDonald's 2 blocks away, and I think a dinner across the street. But our only option was bring your own or eat that lukewarm soggy crap they offered. (Makes me wonder what Jamie would have done at my old high school for lunches)
I have signed his petition too and hopefully our voices will be heard and a change will be made.
Jamie Oliver rocks!
Jamie did this here in the UK a few years back and got quite a bit of flack here too. I became a school cook/manager just a year ago and things are changing. We too have menus planned for us by the county councils on a monthly rolling cycle but they concentrate a lot more on home cooked food now. I cook for 200 children most days (I do have staff to help tho) I make fresh bread daily and offer salad and fresh fruit platters every day too, with a main dish, a veggie option, several veg and some kind of carbohydrate - maybe pasta or rice or potatoes. Sometimes the recipe is quite basic though, and so I like to add extra veg or herbs too (though i havnt 'asked for permission' from higher management here. I !think it probably helps that I have always been interested in eating healthily for my family before I took this job though.
From what I know about the series, the intentions may be good, but the way it's done... I'm not so sure about that.
A friend of mine who is studying to become a teacher volunteered for a "cooking with kids" program at a school. In the beginning, she said, it was terrible - one of the kids actually wanted to take the whole bunch to McD*. They had to start slowly, introducing the kids to healthier food and greater food varieties one step at a time. After one year, most of the kids loved vegetables and had developed a healthier taste when choosing snacks and food.
Germany doesn't generally have school lunches (most kids go home around lunch time), but most schools I know have snack machines with chocolate etc. on their premises. How is that going to teach kids to eat healthier? Especially when the parents have to work and not muc time to food-educate the little ones... my parents never had the time, and I am still learning to eat healthier at the age of 27. No need to say I still need to loose several pounds before I'll have a "good" weight (not skinny, but healthy).
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