Though the words stunned, amazed, horrified and saddened would have worked equally as well.
What am I babbling on about?
I was watching the telly the other night when up popped Jamie Oliver and I found myself being sucked in to the vortex that was, Jamie Oliver’s food revolution. I was totally horrified to see that a whole classroom full of six or seven year old American children couldn’t identify a potato, a tomato, a cauliflower or any other fresh vegetable you cared to mention.
I was sitting there with my mouth wide open, totally gobsmacked.
Now I knew that some children thought that eggs came from the carton and milk came from the supermarket but to be faced with this scale of food ignorance just blew my mind. It is easy as an Australian to dismiss this as just an American thing but as we all know, where America goes the rest of the world follows.
What are we doing to our children?
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I was gobsmacked too. It was insane.
Incredible stuff isn’t it? Very compelling video of Jamie’s lecture, can only hope we can start to make inroads. I fear one generation is almost too far gone, but if we can get to the kids that don’t know any better yet and teach them good habits there may just be a chance.
Now hang on a minute. I’m not willing to believe this was not some kind of a set-up. You know, hand-picked children. My children are not vegetable lovers but they could walk down the veggie aisle in the store and point out and name almost every item there. I think this was just sensationalism for ratings. Don’t go making generalizations. I think our children’s diets are atrocious (both here and in Australia). Absolutely atrocious. But this just sounds like a bunch of silliness.
Kristin I wasn’t making generalizations at all. Have you seen the programme I was referring to? It was shown on the ABC in America in March and is only just hitting Australia now. The school lunches that they were serving were all pretty horrible. There could have been some skillful editing but it looked pretty authentic to me. I wasn’t just having a dig at America, I was having a dig at our whole western style of food production and ALL of our eating habits.
I was gobsmacked too but I agree a little with Kristen …though stranger ‘wrong’ things have happened.
Even better the body responsible for grading school meals refuses to allow water as a drink as it has no calorific value! Sodas and highly coloured and sugared milkshakes are fine though. There has been a lot of discussion about the Jamie phenomena over the net in the States and there was a huge groundswell against him. But some of the stuff that came to light about their school meals in particular made for chilling reading. I can’t give you links as I found out about it several weeks/months ago whilst blog-hopping but I’m sure a little research could track it all down. There’s also the fact that shops selling ‘proper’ foodstuffs at reasonable prices do not exist in the poorer areas leaving those people only junk food as an option.
I don’t know if I’ve ever commented here and I’m about to comment on something entirely besides the point you’re making and I realize that.
But I have to say, as an American, I’m getting a bit tired of the “where America goes the rest of the world follows” card. You’re a modern, western society over there in Australia, as is Canada, New Zealand and a big chunk of Europe. Do your own thing, set your own standards, educate and feed your children appropriately. Why is the mindset continuously “well, America has done X,Y, and Z wrong, so I guess we’re just going to follow suit.”
I seriously doubt America is going to take a look at Australia and say “let’s nuke those bastards, their kids know what a tomato is and ours don’t.”
On top of that, I agree with Kristin’s comment. This can’t be 100% off the cuff authentic. I worked in childcare for 3 years in the US between 2005-2008 and every child I cared for knew what fruits and vegetables were. And most of them enjoyed eating them as well.
Calliope, I can understand your point, but at the moment here in Australia 90 percent of our television is American, all the fast food chains are American or of the American style. You can hardly find an a Australian owned brand in the supermarket any more, Vegemite is owned by Kraft for goodness sakes. and as I said to Kristin I wasn’t really having a dig at “America” I was having a go at our western style of food production.
I am pleased that the children that you cared for knew what vegetables looked like as that means there is hope.
And I agree that there was probably some skilful editing because I can’t remember Jamie waving around bananas or apples and oranges.he was asking about potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, cauliflowers etc.
But we have become so far removed from our food and how it is produced and that is seriously worrying.
I’ve actually been thinking about this on and off all day and I’d love to pick Kristin and Calliope’s brains for a bit.
I agree, even as I was gobsmacked, that it was likely very clever editing on Jamie’s producer’s behalf – MOST kids in the US I’d expect, know their vegies.
And honestly, Jamie wasn’t asking them what apples and oranges were, he picked tomatoes, egg plant and potatoes.
So I’m curious – are there parts of the US where some fresh foods are less common, like tomatoes? I mean, maybe it’s a Tasmanian thing that we’ve got tomatoes on sale all year round (lets not talk about how bad not eating seasonally is, but anyway) because we’ve got tomato farms and good tomato weather here.
And maybe it was just one child who didn’t know and some other child piped up and answered and they edited it out – VERY possible, knowing that ‘shocking’ tv sells better than happy happy joy joy tv.
And I mean, we don’t see pawpaw and papaya down here – I don’t think I’ve ever even tried them, just because they’re not available.
As for Calliope’s comment that we ought to stand on our own two feet, hear hear! I agree, hehe. Let’s tell our TV stations that and our governments too.
Plus, some of my very best friends are amazing intelligent American women, so I’m inclined to believe it does Jamie’s tv show good to portray the US as less than intelligent, when that’s obivously not true across the board. No more, nor any less intelligent than any other developed country anyway.
Damn! I meant to watch that show and forgot.
I remember quite a while ago, I saw the shows where Jamie was in schools in England, I think London somewhere, and he was picking apart the school lunch menus there too. They had a very limited budget for lunches so cooked and served what they knew what the kids would eat. Mostly chips. (fries) He taught them a little about nutrition and showed them how to cook more nutritious lunches within their budget. At first a lot of the kids weren’t willing to even try the new foods. Now THAT was sad. Not even willing to try?
Actually, we Brit’s have to take responsibility for Jamie Oliver. His mission started here 5+ years ago and has made a significant improvement to school food.
For all those who are querying whether the audience was selected, yes probably, but when Jamie Oliver first got going in the UK not only did the kids not know what veggies were what, they didn’t even understand that chicken nuggets came from chicken (sort of, allegedly!)
BG Xx
Sad, isn’t it?
Thank heavens for a guy like Jamie. He’s doing a great job opening people’s eyes.
America is a HUGE country!! With a vast array of socio-economic and cultural groups.
And I think it’s a given that America has the best of the best as well as the worst of the worst. Exactly the same as we have here in Australia.
I would lay money (and I’m not a betting woman) that there would be communities in Australia where the children were hard-pressed to recognise a vegetable.
I understood Kim’s point, and Jamie’s, to be global, rather than aimed towards any specific nationality.
And I hate the fact that I’m bringing my boys up in an apartment on the 14th floor with no garden whatsoever. If it wasn’t for programmes like Jamie’s (and my belonging to farmers’ veggie market groups), my kids could easily have thought that peas came from the freezer and other vegies came shiny and clean from the supermarket.
I love what Jamie Oliver is doing. Even if it’s just starting this conversation! And I most definitely do NOT see it as “bagging” America. In fact ,I think he was much harder on the English kids and schools that he did in his original series.
Not having seen the program, it’s hard for me to comment on it. I haven’t watched TV in over a year, but I do remember seeing him years back. The part of your post I didn’t like Kim was when you said “it is easy as an Australian to dismiss this as just an American thing,” and then went on to talk about your fear that Australia would soon follow suit. Then you later said you weren’t trying to make generalizations. That sounded to me like a broad generalization and I did find it a bit offensive.
Having lived in both America and Australia (albeit only for 6 months in Aus.) I can say that neither country has very healthy eating habits. I really see very little difference in the two in regards to food. I agree that school lunches here are awful. I don’t like what they feed my kids at school They were introduced to sodas at school (they never had them at home).
Veronica, to answer your question, tomatoes are generally available year round in the supermarkets, everywhere. I’m shocked that any child would not recognize them. Same with potatoes. Cauliflower and eggplant I can believe.
You’re perfectly right, frogpondsrock. America is a country that seems to be leading all the other western countries. They are very very VERY behind when it comes to meeting people’s dietary requirements (who would know that soy is used in about 90% of the foods in America, including spray on apples that in fact contains soybean oil?). I think there is an overall lack of knowledge. It surprises me that Veronica doesn’t agree with you more on this topic. Whilst I do know that people have very little idea of what’s in our food these days, I realise that industry can’t be explained to everyone as some people simply couldn’t comprehend it. Tomato and basic vegetables, however, should be widely recognised though and it is silly if they aren’t.
It is entirely true, some kids really think that milk comes from the supermarket, and… this is not in Australia or America; it was in Bolivia. I was living on a dairy farm making cheese and I had been asked to host a friend’s eight year old. Well, the look on his face when he saw the cows being milked was priceless.
As for the healthy food issue, that is a global concern. But I have to agree with Kim’s comment “where America goes the rest of the world follows.” It is simply because we are exposed to more US propaganda than domestic via TV and other media, so it becomes the norm for better or worse.
AV
Kim, I just realized you have a clip of the show embedded above (doh!). Though I also see it’s 22 minutes long. Argh.
On a completely unrelated topic, how come the widget thingy below our comment that shows our last post is picking up a post from 4 days ago? I’ve written two posts since then. Curious….
@Kristin that is a clip of the TED talk that Jamie Oliver gave. I couldn’t find a link to the show that didn’t have eleventy billion kinds of other crap embedded into it as well.
The comment luv plug in is just temperamental, maybe it likes that post better? who knows 🙂
I can see how it can (or appear to) happen. Boy Child went to After School Care where they once served hard boiled eggs for afternoon tea. Boy had no clue about them. But he has had a very limited diet for quite a few years (ASD) and had eaten them but he didn’t remember. The carers questioned me about it.
Don’t forget the show is apparently based in the most unhealthy place in America with high rates of obesity, heart disease and diabetes. According to Wikipedia (yes I know nto necessarily the most reliable source) in Huntington about 17.5% of families and 24.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 29.8% of those under the age of 18 and 12.5% of those 65 and older.
Maybe fresh food is expensive? Or seen to be too expensive? Maybe the kids don’t go to the shops and that’s why they didn’t recognise the vegetables. I’m not sure my kids would recognise an eggplant straight up because I don’t really like them.
But I think Western society and the convenience factor has a lot to answer for regarding the health and well being of most westernised countries.
Wow, so many thoughtful comments. Food is something we have to be ever vigilant about, and it’s hard. The internet is the main source of information for a lot of us, so if we get it wrong, what to do?
I agree with E – I doubt my kids would know an eggplant because I think they’re awful and don’t buy them! Hehe.
Kristin – I thought tomatoes would be available countrywide, but you know, gotta ask because when it comes to the US, sometimes I really have no idea. Cauliflower? Are they not available all the time?
Cauliflower is available all year (most veggies are, they are just shipped from California or somewhere else), but it’s just not a popular vegetable. Personally, I love eggplant. My kids, not so much. We grow tomatoes and eggplant and peppers and zucchini and one year even tomatillos. Oh, and pumpkin.
I was wondering if perhaps the show was filmed in a lower income area. There is a correlation between poverty and non-whole foods. So what E. says makes sense.
And comment luv is still showing my Glenn Beck post. God dammit. 🙂
You know what his means, don’t you? You and Veronica just need to come out here and visit and see for yourselves! Mkay?
I was shocked and moved when I watched this the other night. As the above commentor mentioned, the town was chosen due to being one of America’s most unhealthy towns, as I am sure will be how he chooses the Australian town he will come to.
Obviously, there will have been some editing and such, but I honestly believe that he is trying to show us things as truthfully as possible. He is so emotional and passionate about what he’s doing that I end up in tears watching and I think he’s doing something so amazingly awesome.
If only we all jumped on the Jamie bandwagon, maybe our children would have a brighter, healthier future.
Yes, I was moved by his passion as well. I don’t watch much telly and I was very surprised that I was so drawn into this show. But the ethical treatment of animals, a wholistic approach to food and food production and healthy food choices are very close to my heart.
I truly believe that our food is killing us.
As an example Preservative 211 has been shown to disrupt DNA in mice and it is thought it could contribute to diseases like Parkinsons. 211 is in nearly all fizzy cordial . What do children like to drink?
Have a good look at the labels on the food that we buy in our supermarkets. You will have to have a long hard look to find Australian produced food.
Just have a quick look at the canned fish. You will be surprised. Try finding Australian tinned fruit, or frozen vegetables.
I have in my pantry a can of apricot halves labelled Made In Australia with a little Australian flag on the fornt of the label, also a bottle of Canola oil that is Australian made. Everything else is either made in Aus. from local and imported ingredients or in the case of my favourite sandwich tuna, product of Thailand. I try to buy as much local as I can, but with canned tuna it’s impossible. I buy my fresh produce from a rival supermarket that sources locally grown fruit and veg.
Yanno. Not too long ago I made a London Broil. My 21 year old daughter just raved on and on about it. “What kind of meat is this Mom?” etc and it isnt like we havent had the broil before. Anyways. She asked why it was called a London Broil. I told her because it is a very expensive cut of meat they fly over from London and it tastes so good because in England the grass is so mucher greener and healthier for the cows. Yeah – she totally bought it, hook, line and sinker. But at least she knows what a potato is…at least I think she does. Well maybe not.
Onya Jamie – it’s a wake-up call and he’s a popular ambassador to spread the message. What an age of experimental food I’ve lived through compared with my grandparents. Are we coming full circle back to the paddock? Love the veg garden initiative in schools. A fascinating topic. Thanks for raising it.
Feral geek kid and I watched it and were horrified that the family he gave a weeks worth of fruit, vegies and meat to cook with had barely touched it and that it took Jamie dragging the whole family to a doctor for the possibility of diabetes to sink in.
This information is widely available and easily obtained unless you live under a rock yet the whole family were over-weight from having a constant junk food diet.
Thank goodness the doctor was brutally honest about the effects of diabetes and what their son faced as his health declined if they continued with the way they ate.
The parents at the school had apparently never considered or thought about the amount of fat, salt, sugar, etc, in their kids’ daily diet until it was shoved in their faces.
It doesn’t matter if they live in a poor socio-economic area, this information is widely available everywhere.
And a lot of it is commonsense!
When my three were young we lived in Wisconsin, northern middle-America, land of dairy farms, cities and suburbs. Our school lunch programs used what the government gave them, with fresh additions, to make hot lunches the kids would eat, and kept the lunches affordable. The kids got entirely too many ‘tater tots’, but they had lunch to get them through the day. Mine got healthy breakfasts and dinners, liked vegetables, and knew all their names. The teachers on lunch duty would make sure they tried three bites of everything, a thankless job! More than half of the kids brought their own lunches, sometimes a good thing, but more often lots of packaged treats (in plastic) that my own would come home and beg for. It was a kid status thing to bring packaged fast foods like fruit rollups and cheese dip with pretzels. Again, television advertising told them what was cool for lunch. The high school lunch program had salad bars and taco bars … very popular with the kids. It wasn’t all bad, and it wasn’t a wealthy community. Today’s harsh economy might make it nearly impossible for kids, especially city kids, to eat well all the time.
Jamie Oliver as a TV personality irritates the hell out of me but he’s done a lot of good over in the UK. He’s definitely had a major, positive influence on the school meal agenda (and our primary school is rather strict about what kids can have in their pack lunches).
I don’t blame Americans getting annoyed about being picked on. But it isn’t always easy for small countries to say “No!” to a big one with an immense marketing budget that’s bought up shares in most of their retailers…
I agree with you ‘Dad Who Writes’, it’s good that the UK is taking some action with regard to Kids’ lunches! Being gluten free, I was not exposed to that so much when I was younger but I can see it is becoming more of an issue. For those of you keen on ‘gluten free false advertising’ my blog spells it all. Go to hubpages.com and go wild with comments. I’d be interested in what you all have to say. (Please don’t delete this comment frogpondsrock as I feel this will be of assistance to those who have quite frankly ‘had enough’). I’m more than happy to keep debating it as long as it takes for these false advertisers to GET REAL!
Meanwhile, I personally find Australia a weak country when it comes to assertiveness. We very much have a ‘she’ll be right’ attitude which I think sort of came from aspects of America. (@frogpondsrock Americans always like to stick up for their country no matter what, so Don’t worry!)
I wont delete your comment this time Kelly as long as you don’t use my blog as a platform to drive traffic to your hubpage. Generally comments with links in them are picked up as spam by Akismet. I removed the comments on the Dominos post because they were off track and were giving me the shits.
Did you change my link frogpondsrock? Or was it me: http:/ /hubpages.com/profile/infonolan (without the space between //). (click on my name alternatively) Sorry I won’t do it any more, just trying to keep these people to me. My hub is pretty well dedicated to false advertising ‘gluten free’. Alright I’ll keep quiet about it now ;).
Jamie Oliver seems to have a good idea of our processed foods. I’m afraid to say that natural foods can also be a problem. Think of salicylates, amines, fructose (fruit sugar), etc. They’re all in natural foods (esp. fruit) and there are people who exist who react to them. They’re allergic to these substances. Having said that, processed foods are the main issue I feel that are responsible. I’m afraid this cannot be reversed once these allergies and intolerances have developed. Probably the cause of coeliacs, come to think of it.
And I would agree that this is child abuse… We need to start cooking from scratch. We need to get handy and in the habit of eating properly! Every effort makes a difference. I feel that our generations are simply becoming more academic and less sensible. At the end of life, how academic we have been won’t matter. It’s how we have lived our lives that will count. I would certainly love to live for 5 years or so longer if it just meant eating a healthy diet.
And by the way, I must say that when I was a child, my parents never believed me when I felt something disagreed with me. They just accused me of not liking it and that it was fine for me to have. They told me it was in my mind (most of these were highly processed foods). Coeliac Disease revealed it all! Both my mother, grandmother and aunt were diagnosed at the same time. We all felt so bad for the poor quality foods around us that we were all hurting ourselves with.
All I can say is I hope others don’t have to face life the way I had to face it. Mind you, I feel much healthier on a gluten free diet – especially if you ever bother to read some the other crap (ingredients) on some gluten-laden products!!!
Make some time to look after yourselves. You’ll be glad you did one day!
Ah, Kelly, you’ve got me pegged. I feel so exposed.
After watching the first in the Food Revolution series on TV, I ended up sitting up till all hours watching the whole series on YouTube. The UK series was fascinating and at times disturbing too. I feel fortunate to have enjoyed a childhood in which food treats hadn’t yet become food staples. We have a surfeit of choice now, really.
I have heard of you through the blogosphere, and here I am to subscribe to you!
http://www.pampersandpinot.com
To be fair to Jamie he did this series on the back of a fantastic 6 parter, Jamie’s American Roadtrip, where he travelled through the US revealing unsung American culinary heaven. He’s not down on the USA, far from it. The town in this new series was picked because it had recently surveyed as the unhealthiest in the country. Having seen the idiot parents in the UK throwing chips and fried fish over locked school gates in the wake of “his” school dinner reforms I expect much of the same from just about anywhere… can’t wait to see the US series.
REMEMBER:
……We should EAT TO LIVE……
……NOT live to eat……
(I worked that out ages ago when becoming gluten free.)
I haven’t seen it but I’ve heard about it!!!
I’m commenting on Veronica’s comment, I met a guy from Columbia online and have been chatting to him for 2 years now and he said that where he lives all they eat is rice and potatoes and a tiny bit of meat. He has only ever had McDonalds once in his life and he said he dreams of smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol.
So maybe where those kids came frm they didn’t see eggplant or potatoes or tomatoes regularly? I would expect that the majority of children in Australia know what they are and what they look like (maybe not eggplant as much) due to the way they sit on supermarket shelves right in the open, and how you see a lot of them on television too. We get a lot of food ads and we probably take for granted how much choice we have.
Even though it’s probably a big overdramaised I appreciate the post Kim and I love the way Jamie Oliver sets out to educate the world on healthy eating habits. I heart Jamie Oliver.
I remember one show where he was showing adults how to make their own sausages and things and showing the ingredients compared to ingredients in packaged sausages. The man who disects people was on that show too showing the insides of an overweight dead man. (Is his name Gunther???)
We watched this earlier this summer. Now my 9 year old granddaughter will not eat chicken nuggets at a restaurant until they promise her they are from the chicken breast only. When I was little, way back in the 50s, we had wonderful school lunches but that was up in wisconsin and a long time ago. I have been horrified to hear what is for lunch these days and was glad that most days my granddaughter made and took her own lunch.
Another comment. In our poorer sections of this area, there are not enough grocery stores with fresh vegetables, plus with our various ethnic groups, food is prepared differently. Some of our children might not recognize a ripe tomato but would recognize a fried green tomato. We do have most types of fruits and vegetables available in most areas but how many children go with their mothers (or fathers) to the store.Parents tend to buy what they like and children eat what is available. Plus so many parents don’t cook much and rely on fast foods and prepared foods. I always considered myself fortunate that my children and grandchildren preferred fresh fruit and vegetables to sweets! Plus my kids used to help me in the garden.
This is such an interesting post and the comments are really thought provoking too.
We live in a lower socio economic area in Australia and some of my kids friends have no idea what some of the vegetables are that my kids bring to school.
Sad but true.
having said that, my kids’ diets are not perfect either. We have take out nights and days when we eat more crap than we should.
It is hard work cooking at home. Very easy and inexpensive to get ‘junk food’ these days. VERY EASY!!
EXTREMELY EASY!!