# Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 27, 2010, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990 "2010-03-27T03:46:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/121 "2010-04-05T00:35:56Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > Ehh, I read it as a somewhat-cranky effort at contrarianism. snip. The contrarianism would be fine if it actually had an element of humor or satirical wit. As if stands, it’s merely disingenuous and irritating. Well, there’s always the ignore function… ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/122 "2010-04-05T02:21:01Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > I just tried a bite of microwaved frozen pizza the other day (hungry–no good excuse) and was immediately reminded of why I quit eating this stuff years ago. It’s petrified grease on cardboard. You can’t chew the crust, the meat is oily, the cheese is even more so, and it’s been in the box for so long with so many preservatives that it’s nothing but congealed goop. > It was so different from the tasty pizzas made from fresh ingredients and cooked for immediate consumption that they don’t even belong in the same category. > > I suppose that makes me a deluded, “homeopathic” food nazi. :rolleyes: Well then, you obviously have never tried [Mama Celeste’s Thin Crust Pizza](http://www.celestepizza.com/products.html). It is not greasy nor cardboard. Quite a lovely microwave pizza. The packaging actually crisps the crust. 5 for 6, on sale. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/123 "2010-04-05T02:40:30Z")
> [@Lamar\_Mundane](#): > > I don’t think devilsknew is a troll, I think she is the bitter lunchlady at the elementary school, who is really, really pissed about her cheese being moved. I don’t think she’s a troll, but clearly extremely bitter. I also get the sense that she’s not actually mad at Jamie, and probably hasn’t seen the show. Her comments are very generic contarianism towards nutritionists. My mother was a nutritionist, and oddly enough went around to schools trying to improve their lunch programs. Problem was that she was the stereotypical nutritionist, all text-book no common sense–sub whole wheat bread for white bread, skim milk instead of whole, blah blah blah. When I started watching this show I expected Jamie to be a food nazi or at the very least a food snob. I expected a lot of generic nutritional nonsense and a dose of organics rammed down kid’s throats. But that’s not his game. He’s promoting real food, cooked fresh. He’s not cutting out all the fat, or reducing the sugar. He even said he loves fries and thinks they’re great once in a while. He wants these kids to enjoy real food again. To have a piece of chicken that wasn’t pureed, breaded, and repackaged. To have pizza made with real dough and fresh toppings. He’s not saying “don’t have dipping sauces” he’s saying, “let’s make our own.” ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/124 "2010-04-05T02:41:38Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > Well then, you obviously have never tried [Mama Celeste’s Thin Crust Pizza](http://www.celestepizza.com/products.html). It is not greasy nor cardboard. Quite a lovely microwave pizza. The packaging actually crisps the crust. 5 for 6, on sale. I know the pizza these kids are getting, and it is definitely NOT Mama Celeste’s. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/125 "2010-04-05T03:06:25Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > But that’s not his game. He’s promoting real food, cooked fresh. He’s not cutting out all the fat, or reducing the sugar. He even said he loves fries and thinks they’re great once in a while. He wants these kids to enjoy real food again. To have a piece of chicken that wasn’t pureed, breaded, and repackaged. To have pizza made with real dough and fresh toppings. > > He’s not saying “don’t have dipping sauces” he’s saying, “let’s make our own.” Yeah, that’s what he said when he was looking at frozen pizza–that it wasn’t even _good_ pizza. And I was thinking–oh is he going to be uber snobby, but he wasn’t. The food he was making wasn’t esoteric foodie stuff. It was pasta, salad, chicken, rice. And as he pointed out, there’s no excuse for fries being veggies while his stirfry loaded with veggie wasn’t. Or having to give kids rice _and_ bread. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/126 "2010-04-05T03:07:07Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > I don’t think she’s a troll, but clearly extremely bitter. Bitter are the tonics of every snake oil salesman that relies on commercialism, sensationalism, and gimmick to conjure prejudice. As a magician, my code is to run every conman out of town on a rail. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/127 "2010-04-05T03:13:45Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > I know the pizza these kids are getting, and it is definitely NOT Mama Celeste’s. Yea, I know. And with great sadness. I used to have a lunchlady connection, as many of my friends did, and my parents could obtain the high quality schoolpizzas on the blackmarket bulk and commodity. Just couldn’t quite get a pizza that appealed to so many and was made with such high quality ingredients as schoolpizzas. Even Schwan’s didn’t come close. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/128 "2010-04-05T03:14:11Z")
**devilsknew** –do you think that what the kids were eating before Jamie Oliver came was acceptable, then? ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/129 "2010-04-05T03:48:01Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > **devilsknew** –do you think that what the kids were eating before Jamie Oliver came was acceptable, then? Yes, in the schools, I think many are receiving a healthy and balanced meal for their age and caloric requirements. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/130 "2010-04-05T04:05:54Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > Yes, in the schools, I think many are receiving a healthy and balanced meal for their age and caloric requirements. In the schools shown on his program? Honestly? Pizza and fries and nuggets day in and day out is OK? Not being rude, but you don’t think actual well made chicken is better for them than a nugget? ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/131 "2010-04-05T04:13:16Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > In the schools shown on his program? Honestly? Pizza and fries and nuggets day in and day out is OK? Not being rude, but you don’t think actual well made chicken is better for them than a nugget? I think the kids in elementary on a fixed menu were receiving a quite lovely lunch… The kids in Huntington High school belong to a different lunch culture than my 80’s school district High School. We didn’t have the choices they had, certainly no choice of pizza or chicken sandwich everyday. We continued with a fixed meal and a few extras like salad, tacosalad, and other limited alternatives. We had no pop machines, but a limited concession stand that competed. The great majority ate cafeteria food. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/132 "2010-04-05T04:24:47Z")
I don’t think there’s any way you can say that their lunch was good. You can’t serve people pizza, burgers, and fries on a daily basis and expect the majority of them to be of thin or normal weight and to be healthy. I do agree that some of his methods–the canvas of large amounts of food–was a bit stunt-y. Yeah, most stuff will look gross in those quantities. But he’s not being really petty about it. There was no, “OMG, you’re eating WHITE BREAD, not WHOLE GRAINS? you’re eating HIGH FAT SALAD DRESSING?” I don’t think he cared about that–for him, it was more, “Is this actual food?” He wasn’t splitting hairs over, ooh, is the salad dressing super low fat, is this low calorie. It was more like…is this food. And I think it’s also important to teach kids that eating “good” food isn’t about an obligation. It’s not like you have to eat boring old lettuce to be healthy as the radio announcer seemed to think. There’s a lot of ways to make it fun. Putting veggies in the stir fry. Or eating salad with a well made dressing. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/133 "2010-04-05T04:33:18Z")
…we could also get a free peanut butter sanwich, if we had forotten our lunch money and weren’t on the subsidized program. How many of these kids are getting free lunches, is what I want to know. That is a very salient and telling nutritional point. I mean, we don’t want starving children either, do we? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/134 "2010-04-05T04:48:31Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > Troll this. > > Apple or Tomato juice/sauce, which has more sugars? I offered a spiced apple alternative. Jamie Oliver isn’t being a chef… He’s some kind of hardline food nazi troll… the propaganda, they hurtses the people he is trying to help. Do you think all sugars metabolize the same? ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/135 "2010-04-05T04:51:33Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > I don’t think she’s a troll, I regret giving the benefit of the doubt. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/136 "2010-04-05T04:57:08Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Do you think all sugars metabolize the same? I think all fructose and their concentrations or byproducts metabolize the same. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/137 "2010-04-05T05:14:55Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > I just remembered the actual Japanese term: Bon kyu bon. The translation is big _small_ big, not big little big. That’s why I couldn’t google it. > > Anyway, here’s a [cite](http://www.thestar.com/living/article/211747), and it appears my guess that they’re also getting taller is correct.In short, I wouldn’t point to a traditional Japanese diet as an example of good nutrition. To get back to this–how do we know that they’re getting bigger and fitter and that they’re not just getting fatter, though? It seems kind of like circular reasoning to say that because they’re getting bigger with a Western diet, that that diet must be better. Why is it necessarily bad to be smaller on a diet of vegetables, rice, tofu, etc.? ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/138 "2010-04-05T05:25:32Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I don’t think there’s any way you can say that their lunch was good. You can’t serve people pizza, burgers, and fries on a daily basis and expect the majority of them to be of thin or normal weight and to be healthy. Show me the school lunchroom in West Virginia that is serving these people pizza, burgers, and fries on a daily basis. That only seemed standard insomuch as pizza and chicken sandwiches are served at Huntington high school along with a menu item. It seemed like the elementary “people” were getting a quite varied menu, even before Jamie. I still haven’t seen a monthly lunch menu for any of these cafeterias that were so deficient in Oliverian terms? How does this really compare to the American lunch program as a whole… nationally? I am asking because I reallly have no idea. My lunches in the 70’s and eighties were much healthier and involved more scratchwork than what I have seen… but I don’t want to indict some people that are a state away. Let alone, a world away… like Mr. Oliver. I mean, I know the British lunch program sucks compared to ours… but I don’t see Jamie addressing that. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/139 "2010-04-05T05:37:10Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > I think all fructose and their concentrations or byproducts metabolize the same. That’s not the question I asked. Do you think all sugars metabolize the same? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/140 "2010-04-05T12:59:22Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > I mean, I know the British lunch program sucks compared to ours… but I don’t see Jamie addressing that. This show is based on what he’s been doing in England. Hehas been “addressing” the situation in Britain for a good while. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990.md?page=8)