You got to watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIwrV5e6fMY
(It’s 20 minutes long so get comfortable)
And the accompanying article for more information about the award: http://www.tedprize.org/jamie-oliver/
Jamie Oliver is working to change children’s lives by tackling school lunch. When he accepts the award he does a dramatic display with sugar. That’s all I’m going to say about that. And then the clips of the families he is working with…wow.
My favorite part is when he takes a bunch of different vegetables into the classroom and shows them to the students. He asks them to name each of them. A kid calls an eggplant “a pear.”
I’m going to try the that with my students sometime soon (this week if I find time to get to a grocery store). It’s the Jamie Oliver Vegetable Experiment!
Have you read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle? It's a really great, she grows her own food for a year, and it takes a different look at the food issue at hand. She talks about how people don't know what their food looks like before it ends up in a grocery store, one memorable example was a little kid thinking spaghetti was a vegetable. I'd love to hear how the vegetable experiment goes!
This was amazing. Thanks for posting it.
Lol did you read the articles about how some parents hated Jamie Oliver's program so much that they passed foods such as chips or takeout from outside restaurants through the schoolgates to their children? A lot of parents and grandmas especially are upset over Jamie Oliver's plan because usually, on a child's birthday, the parents or grandparents will bake a cake or some other goodies but because of the new "Healthy Eating" plans, they've all been banned.
Thank you for posting this. I loaned a copy of Jamie Oliver Brit show to a friend 2 years ago, and it changed her life and helped send her on a personal mission of change. The more attention that can be drawn to poor meals and kids class moods the better. I just learnt that cereal HAS to come off of my sons breakfast menu and that the peanut butter on whole wheat sandwich he wants to have every morning is MUCH healthier for him, and will help sustain him through the day longer.
I've been on the road to diabetes for the past couple years, and have put on an additional 10 pounds in the past two months thanks to a bad knee and the depression of being unemployed … but this has changed my life!
Thank you for sharing that. I just came across you blog and I am so intrigued.
Another great TED speech on school lunch:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ann_cooper_talks_school_lunches.html
My mother was not a great cook, but I at least knew the difference between a tomato and a potato! I mean, who are these kids who've never SEEN a potato???
funny you posted that, because I just watched it and was about to share the link with you!
very inspirational talk. I shared your link with my mom, who is also a schoolteacher. her school (and the district) is very disjointed and poor, and although many of these children eat ONLY at school, they have done nothing to advance the nutrition of their offerings. it's very sad.
Mrs Q,
I wholeheartedly applaud your efforts to raise awareness regarding the nutritional value of school lunches. I am a nurse and mother of 5, and have stated for years that this issue needs serious attention.
My children's schools will bring in fast food, they have vending machines available, and the food overall looks very similar to your photos. I require my children to pick which days they would like to eat school lunch (no greater than 1/2 the month), and provide them with nutritios options for packing their own the rest of the time. While I know that this costs me more up front (and there are a number of parents who are in no financial to provide this option to their children) I do believe that this will save them tremendously in the future.
We are now a country battling portion sizes, and obesity in epidemic status. I feel that we cannot preach healthy eating and teach nutrition to our students in the school system (it should begin at home of course, but ideally this is not always an option) and then in the same breath provide our children the tools to slowly kill themselves. What a hippocritical system!
Best of luck with you mission…if you start any national petitions, you know you'll be able to find my name on it. I'm proud to say that I'm an advocate for healthy eating.
I think I love you! I would never let my daughter eat at school, no matter how much she begs me. I've never actually seen the food, but just reading the menu was enough for me to decide I couldn't in good concience let her eat pizza, corn dogs and burgers every day. Now that I've seen the photos….GAG. Keep up the enlightening.
What you are doing is awesome and motivating! I am wishing you the best of luck and hoping this leads to changes in our kids school lunches. I love all your ideas and just want to add something to it. I believe if schools invested in solar panels this would free up a HUGE amount of money that the schools could spend towards better lunches and curriculums. Schools spends an unfathomable amount of money on electric bills each year.The upfront cost of solar panels can be expensive put they will pay for themselves down in the long run.
I am all for providing kids with healthy food and opportunities for activity. But Oliver's focus on fatness as the primary concern is misguided and perpetuates anti-fat bigotry. What makes people fat is far more complex than whether they eat fruit and vegetables every day, or whether they eat chips versus gourmet-prepared pasta. My diet contains far more whole foods than the highly refined and processed recipes he provides on his website as "healthy", and I buy locally and cook from scratch. Yet I'm "obese". Most people I know eat fast food and refined carbs and sugar and don't exercise, and most of those people are average-sized or thin. It is a well-entrenched (and profitable) myth that fat people are simply people who can't be bothered to do the right thing, and that the thin people are the ones who do. And it takes attention and money away from research that should be getting done about the meeting of genetics and environment.
Just watched that…I SOOOOOO gotta change and teach my daughter well! Thank GOD she's not obese or fat like me, but she does need more fruits and veggies!
Thank you SOOOOO much for sharing the link!
Put these two words in your search,"dangers of" followed by whatever ingredient you have a question about I'm sure you'll be better informed about what you want to put into you or your kids bodies. Check out– aspartame,splenda, soy in any form, canola oil,or any other ingredient. Why would many of the better known brands of peanut butter take out the natural peanut oil and put in soy oil and rapeseed oil which if you check out can be harmful. I found Smuckers Natural or Oganic are the best. Start reading the ingredient labels for harmful ingredients.As an example, because soy acts like a female hormone, a days worth of soy formula is like giving the baby five birth control pills. Get informed, it's your only protection and kudoes to Jamie for his efforts to make change for the good.