Once again, tonight's episode of "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" has disappeared from the TV listings. For the second week in a row, there is no episode. So I started wondering about the two previously aired episodes that seem so long ago ...
In writing about an episode filled with tidbits of information and a few commercials (inside and out) on the run while juggling a day job, sometimes nuggets fall through the cracks. So as a public service, and a jab at ABC, here is what you may have caught, but we missed:
-- In Season 1, Jamie tried an experiment on the bits of chicken that really aren't supposed to be eaten. Those kids in West Virginia ate the chicken patties anyway because they "were hungry."
In Episode 1 this year, Jamie shows off the bits of meat the butcher throws away, notes that while it's aimed to become dog food, Oliver says U.S. companies are allowed to use up to 15% of that "meat" in meat, and "the USDA, who are employed to protect you people, have made it legal to not have to register on any form of labeling, the ammonia." Oliver explains off-camera that ammonia is considered part of the process, not an ingredient, and is admitted that this process goes into at least 70% of ground beef products.
That tidbit, along with the news in Season 1, should have been headlines on the news the next day. This may be the first you are hearing about it. If ammonia is in my food, I sure as hell want to know.
To their credit, no one — kids or adults — wanted to eat that, even if it looked as appealing as regular meat.
-- Also in Episode 1, Jamie attended a lecture at the California School Nutrition Association on keeping flavored milk in schools. The lecturer, whose face was blurred out, noted a study that said when you take out flavored milk in schools, milk consumption dropped by 35%. Jamie's response:
"That's not rocket science. We all know if you dip food in sugar, they'll eat more of it. So what next, if you want to give them a bit of apple, it has to be a toffee apple?"
Jamie Oliver pointed out that flavored milk is banned in England and Europe. The lecturer says that he doesn't know the milk consumption in those countries. It's a diversion; kids in England and Europe drink milk and/or may get calcium from other sources. In fact, American school systems should be studying England and Europe to see how to get kids to drink milk without added sugars. We should also point out that California is a major producer of milk, so there is pressure to drink milk, regardless of how much added sugars there are.
"You do not systemically give kids in schools sugary flavored milks in the middle of an obesity crisis."
In real life, Jamie Oliver did get the LAUSD to intend to ban flavored milk (the ban needs to be approved). Every little bit helps in the Revolution.
-- In Episode 2, Jamie dresses up like a tomato and has other volunteers dress up like fruits and vegetables. The goal is to pass out free healthy lunches and flyers to get a LAUSD board member to let Jamie into the schools. One of the volunteers, Frances, had this emotional plea:
"The only thing they are educating them is how to get diabetes, how to get high blood pressure, hypertension. They are training them to eat fast food. When they are giving them pizza 3 times a week, and they get home, and they still ask for more pizza. I don't think it's proper for a school to educate them on obesity."
Beautifully said, if if she was wearing a strawberry costume. Schools are for education. In the California School Nutrition Association lecture, the theme is "Serving Education" with a dancing person and an apple. What Frances is seeing is a kid with low energy and a slice of pizza. Our children deserve to learning about nutrition, not fast food.
-- Jamie Oliver has had this idea of invading an established fast food restaurant to show how you can make better quality fast food. Has Jamie not been introduced to the idea of food trucks?
In Episode 2, Oliver takes to the streets to introduce the Revolution Burger, designed to compete with regular fast food. He sets up a cart at a street corner and passes out samples, asking people to pay what they think it's worth. If Jamie Oliver had a Food Revolution food truck, he could bypass the "reality show" mentality of having to take over a fast food restaurant. This is 2011, if you want to show off a difference, take that difference to the streets. For all my criticism of food trucks, this would be a positive use.
Previous coverage of the first two episodes: