Jamie Oliver in America

Jamie Oliver is a famous British chef, who's been on TV and writing cook books for many years now. He has come to America to discuss food and nutrition with parents and kids.

I watched Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution last night for the first time, and have to say I was completely shocked by what is going on in America. Now in all fairness, Jamie was visiting a part of the country said to be the worst in America (for these issues). But nevertheless, the results were scary.

McNugget Experiment Goes Wrong

Jamie took a bunch of kids aged six into his kitchen. He showed them a chicken and proceeded to cut off all the nice bits of meat. He then took the carcass, ground it up with some chemicals and artificial flavors, all the while explaining how nasty this was. He then cooked the slop into a chicken nugget and asked the kids if they would eat it. Historically, when you do this kind of demonstration for kids they reject the nasty food. These kids however, upon seeing the friendly shape of a chicken nugget instantly volunteered to eat it.

Name the Vegetable

Jamie went into a class of six year olds, and held up various vegetables. The kids were asked to identify them. The kids were unable to identify tomatoes, potatoes, cauliflower, and a wide range of other common food items. They didn't even understand how French Fries were made, what vegetable created them, or what vegetable was in tomato ketchup.

Diet

The kids at this school in West Virginia were on a school diet of frozen, fried and processed food. We're talking breakfast and lunch, pizza, pasta, nachos, fries, burgers, chicken nuggets, you name it. Massive intakes of fat and sodium every single day, leading to a shocking obesity rate. All meals washed down with sugary drinks.

Silverware

The school prepared food that could easily be eaten with fingers, and maybe a spoon. As a result, the kids at the school were never taught to use a knife and fork to eat their food. This simple skill, never learned by kids as old as 10.


It's an eye opening show, and certainly highlights just what is going wrong in America. Once again greed, stupidity, and cutting corners to save money have led to a horrible system that will cause unimaginable pain and suffering for decades to come.

The show highlighted just how badly we have our priorities wrong in this country. Children are obviously the future, and yet they are often denied basic health care, basic food and nutrition, and lack the most basic education. How are we ever going to improve this country, when we continue to squander our resources on wars, guns, bombs, and keeping our troops in over 150 countries for no reason? America needs to wake up to these massive social problems before we destroy ourselves.