I admit I have only watched one half of one episode of Jamie taking his 'Revolution' to America, but (and excuse me if I'm wrong) the ideas seem to me to be pretty much the same as the ones he expounded in the series a couple of years ago set in UK schools.
I don't think anyone could seriously disagree with his principles! Feeding children good, wholesome fresh food is a good idea. Cutting down on fats, sugar and additives is a good idea. Although for a time during my life it was just not PC to say a person was fat. Saying fat was (and is) rude. But it now seems to be perfectly OK to say that a person is obese. Let's face it, it would be hard not to notice that over a scarily short period of time people in the West have just kept on getting bigger. During the same time, post WW2, we have had in the UK at least (and I suspect elsewhere in the developed world) a growing love affair with choice. Politicians seem to dangle the possibility of ever more choice in front of us on a regular basis. Certainly in terms of the variety of foods available to us the choice has grown rapidly over the past 50 years or so.
Now here's the thing. Do people make good choices? Certainly where food is concerned, if we take the health of the individual as a measure, then people do not make particularly good choices and in some very visible cases, very bad choices indeed. It's distressing to see children as young as 4 or 5 panting their way up a single flight of stairs to sit in an amorphous puddle of fat to watch their own TV or play on their own computer whilst munching something unspeakable from a colourful family sized pack. If this scene can be commonly seen across the western world, at first glance it would seem to be the outcome of a series of bad dietary choices. Or is it?
One thing a I have never heard mentioned in any of the multitude of programmes and articles about our modern day diets, and most particularly the large amounts of fats and sugars consumed, is our natural instinct to favour those sorts of foods over any other. It's not just advertising Jamie Oliver is fighting, or the tiny budgets available for school meals, or the ever increasing demands on a typical persons disposable income - it's nature itself. There is a mammoth in the room.
Early man did not go to the trouble of cracking open Mammoth bones just for fun. Mammoth marrow, and as far as I know bone marrow in general, is a very good source of fat as, in fact, is brain - another stone age delicacy. We humans, like any other animal, are programme to pack in the calories. Honey is a great source of sugars, we all know that. Ancient man knew it too and would risk a damned good stinging, not to mention the chance of a bone breaking fall, by climbing tall trees and scooping out honey-comb from the nests of wild bees. I think the idea, put very simply, is to pack in as many calories as possible since there may not be too many available the next day, week or even season. It makes sense to store fat. Of course, those ancient bone cracking, tree scaling people did not go home to centrally heated homes (shivering uses calories) and as far as I know there is no evidence to suggest that there was a neolithic version of a pizza delivery guy. They had to burn calories to get calories. All that hunting, butchering, bone cracking, fire wood collecting, tree scaling and so on used up a lot of energy. Yes, I'm stating the obvious.
These people were not more virtuous than modern humans - and being slim these days would seem to suggest an implied virtuousness, I think you'd agree - they just didn't have any choice. I'm sure if you took little baby Ugg, the early human, and brought her up in a modern North American home she would be munching the unspeakable snack whilst exercising her thumbs texting her friend.
So it begs the question: Is choice a good thing? I think my answer is 'Not always'. If choices are not influenced by a strong natural imperitive then, in most cases the choosee can use his or her intellect to make a good decision. But if the choices to be made are influenced by fundanmental natural drives like eating loads when there is loads in case the hunting is bad tomorrow, it's difficult for most of us to overcome our natural urges and make good healthy choices.
"We like to give the kids choice" and "The parents like their kids to have choices" are paraphrases of statements made by the 'dinner ladies' on Jamie's programme. I couldn't help myself. I shouted at the TV. "Don't give them a choice. Choice is bad". If anyone had witnessed my outburst, I probably would have been embarrassed, but I still believe that giving very young children (and actually older children as well) choice about what they eat is a very bad idea indeed especially if the choice is between a 'healthy meal' and a Happy Meal. Of course they will choose the fatty stuff, the sugary stuff and the brightly coloured stuff. Berries are often brightly coloured and are packed with vitamins. Little Ugg's eyes would have lit up at the sight of a brightly coloured fruit and so little Daryl's or Cheryl's or Justin's eyes will light up at the sight of gaudy wrappers and so are almost bound to choose the bright blue bubble gum flavoured soda over a plain old glass of water.
Bad habits die hard, and you could also say that having bad habits makes you die hard, and young, and in a very costly way to society in general. It is accepted that children who eat balanced, healthy diets and are introduced to a variety of natural foods when young are likely to continue to eat that way into adulthood. If 'choices' are good in adulthood (and I seriously doubt that is always the case) then 'choices', in my opinion, are often not good at all when offered to children.
Children's natural instincts are sharp and their intellects still in development. I know that to criticise parents is not a fashionable thing to do but surely Jamie's attempts at revolution are made much much harder if parents are not on board. I think parents need to recognise that we all have little Uggs, dying to crack open the bone, except our little Uggs don't shiver often or go charging after Mammoths.
PS I think Jamie's idea is a really, really good one!
I just read the comment made by Lilith. I agree with her too (today seems to be a good day for agreeing!) that choice is market led and the big food producers have large budgets to play with so their products are present on our screens a great deal. However, there are lots and lots of healthy alternatives readily and cheaply available. Perhaps 10 or 20 years ago the general public could claim 'to know no better', and this could account for the appalling diets many children have. But in the last decade there have been countless advertising campaigns paid for by government, programmes such as Jamie Oliver's, posters in doctors' waiting room and so on. There cannot be many people in the developed world remaining who are unaware of the effect of diet on children. Food in all it's forms is cheaper now than ever before. Some people are just choosing to stick with fast food, take aways and unspeakable snacks.
the main issue with choice in our consumer society i feel is actually that the choices available are market driven!!! Our selection of food is offered as a profit making enterprise- not as a public service to the health of the nation.
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