The Madness of King Jamie

I recently had a chance to watch an episode of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and have to say that I found the show quite entertaining. As someone who admittedly likes to eat fast food and snack on chips, the thought of a Food Network star trying to convince kids at school to eschew their chicken nuggets, pizza and tater tots for "healthy" food seemed like a good concept, and the execution was pretty good, too. The episode I caught (which I assume is pretty much standard after a while), showed Jamie at a Huntington, West Virginia elementary school locking horns with skeptical cafeteria workers and palate-challenged kids in a (I felt) unsuccessful attempt to eat organic burritos and pasta.

A recent article in the New York Post seemed to show that not everyone is exactly rooting for Jamie's little revolution to succeed. I agree with some of the criticism. Even on the show, Jamie can come off as a little patronizing and condescending. I suppose it's difficult for him not to - after all, for him it's clear that the food that the parents in Huntington are killing their kids, and he's bewildered why the parents are either too stupid or too apathetic to do anything about it. And when it's obvious that you feel that people are stupid or apathetic due to a lack of knowledge (a.k.a. ignorance), it comes off as, well, patronizing and condescending. Or as someone quipped on the show, "Who made him King?"

As far as some of his ideas, I'm not sure Jamie completely understands the uh... home economics of cafeteria operations (not to claim that I do). The use of processed foods is prevalent because it's cheap and can be prepared quickly and easily. If you want to go organic and healthy, you won't just experience a surge in the cost of the ingredients, but will also experience a surge in the cost of cafeteria labor due to longer preparation times (both which will get passed on to the financially struggling families). Do families want to start paying twice as much for their kids lunches so they can have arugula and free-range chicken? Probably not.

Another point that cynics make is that it's questionable whether Jamie Oliver genuinely gives a hoot about these kids or is this crusade a nice little means of getting a kickin' show with good ratings. Who knows? There have been a lot of celebrities who have done things to get television exposure. It can't be any worse than Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie in A Simple Life.

Good luck to you, Jamie Oliver. Going up against American cuisine culture (you call it obesity) might be as successful as the time the British tried to get Americans to pay a stamp tax. For the sake of our kids' health, I hope you fare better.