The Food Revolution

Over the last six weeks, I watched Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. Jamie Oliver is a chef from England who traveled to Huntington, West Virginia to make changes in the way they and, ultimately, America eats. It was a very interesting series and if you want to check the shows out, you can view them here.

During the show, Jamie first started by trying to change the school lunches in Huntington. It is a tragedy that schools serve such processed foods, and count French fries as a vegetable. Of course, French fries are technically a vegetable; however, we all know that they carry very little nutritional value and are high in calories and saturated fat. Jamie also set up "Jamie's Kitchen" in Huntington to provide cooking lessons for all who wanted to learn. It was so refreshing to see so many people coming out to learn cooking basics. Cooking can be fun and a great skill for parents to share with their children. Without simple cooking skills, we most certainly will rely more and more on processed foods that are high in unhealthy fats, sugar, and calories.

My one negative criticism of Jamie's revolution is that I, naturally, believe that he should have a Registered Dietitian working with him. He obviously has the skills to cook up fantastic meals; however, a dietitian could help to be sure that all of the foods are nutritionally sound. For instance, I noticed that Jamie once served chicken with the skin. The skin of chicken is loaded with unhealthy, saturated fats. On another occasion, he served homemade ranch dressing. Homemade or store bought, ranch dressing is still loaded with unhealthy fats. An oil based dressing would have been much healthier.

Anyhow, I would like to encourage you all to sign Jamie's petition to keep this food revolution going throughout our nation. We need our children to be served better foods in school and we need to spread basic cooking skills to our citizens to improve the health of this nation! Please take a moment to sign the petition!