# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/141 "2010-04-05T13:41:05Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > 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.? Because they’re getting taller. Height is a primary indicator for nutritional health. Less nutritious diets result in shorter people. Also, the women are getting hourglass figures. The article mentioned how their waists actually got smaller by an inch. That’s the antithesis of getting fatter. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/142 "2010-04-05T14:23:23Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > 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. Just what was that pizza like? The pizza they had when I was in elementary school (in the 1980s) were these soggy rectangles that had the taste and texture of a doormat. I tried eating it a few times and it gave me the runs. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/143 "2010-04-05T14:24:58Z")
Hi, sorry, I’ve been unable to post in the thread due to having been incapacitated with laughter upon reading “high-quality school pizzas” – oh god, here I go again… I’ll be back in a couple of hours. ---
**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, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/144 "2010-04-05T14:54:04Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > I know the British lunch program sucks compared to ours… but I don’t see Jamie addressing that. [Jamie’s School Dinners](http://www.channel4.com/life/microsites/J/jamies_school_dinners/index.html) [wiki on Jamie’s School Dinners](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie%27s_School_Dinners). [His website](http://www.channel4.com/life/microsites/J/jamies_school_dinners/index.html) [I think you can watch it here.](http://www.tv.com/jamies-school-dinners/show/34298/summary.html) If you clicked any of those links, you would have seen Jamie addressing the British lunch program. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/145 "2010-04-05T15:07:04Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > 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.? > [@EllisDee](#): > > Because they’re getting taller. Height is a primary indicator for nutritional health. Less nutritious diets result in shorter people. > > Also, the women are getting hourglass figures. The article mentioned how their waists actually got smaller by an inch. That’s the antithesis of getting fatter. In hindsight I’m not sure I directly addressed your basic question. Being taller isn’t the better result in and of itself; being taller is merely the side effect. The real benefit of better nutrition is better brain development. This is why our meat-eating proto-human ancestors thrived while their closely-related vegetarian counterparts died out. Better nutrition from meat led to bigger brains, allowing superior adaptation to changing condidtions. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/146 "2010-04-05T17:28:11Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > Show me the school lunchroom in West Virginia that is serving these people pizza, burgers, and fries on a daily basis. I got the lunch menus from the best school districts in my area for you. I’m not in WV–one state away, though, and in a much larger city. These are the three best school districts in the city, and here’s what they’re serving elementary school students. [Worthington Schools](http://www.worthington.k12.oh.us/uploads/2/File/documents/elementary_menu_0910.pdf): The purple week is chicken nuggets, followed by hot dog, followed by pizza, followed by french toast or an omelet, followed by burgers. The rest isn’t any better. Of an entire month, there seem to be three full meals that aren’t fast-food: Macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, and ravioli. [Upper Arlington:](http://oh-upperarlingtonschools.civicplus.com/documents/Business%20Services/Food%20Services/UPPER_ARLINGTON_MENU.pdf%20072809.PDF) Probably the best schools in the area, and one of the best in the state. Depending on what the Cook’s Choice is, they could have up to eight non-fast-food options in a month, but it’s probably more like four. I’m counting the Grilled Cheese sandwich as okay, although it’s still not that great for you. Bosco sticks are breadsticks filled with cheese, for those of you who don’t know. They also have baked spaghetti, and a bagel with cream cheese. Several days, the only thing resembling a veggie that they get is a ketchup packet. [Bexley:](http://www.bexleyschools.org/docs/lunchmenus/April%202010%20plate%20lunch-2.pdf) A little better. Still junk food entrees for the most part, but with an effort to include whole grains. Only one day do they count a potato as a vegetable and give no other veggies. Not perfect, but certainly the best I’ve seen so far. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/147 "2010-04-05T17:44:37Z")
I opened a thread in [Great Debates](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=558562) on this topic. ---
**Author:** ![Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bc8723/32.png) [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/148 "2010-04-05T18:41:22Z")
Thanks for that, **Drain Bead**. Judging from what I see on the trays when I eat lunch with my kid, that is about par for the course for our “prestigious” schools as well. It is just so sad that the school lunch program is stuck in the dark ages, nutritionally. The latest scientific information we have on healthful eating tells us that these things are generally quite bad for us, and should be consumed maybe a couple times a week, rather than daily: refined flour white potatoes white rice fruit juice (except maybe 100% pomegranate juice) red meat butter cheese As far as we can tell, there is no safe level of consumption for trans fats. Also, high-fat or high-calorie foods need to be limited, even when they deliver useful nutrients. (I’m pulling this info from the studies amassed by the Harvard School of Public Health and from Walter Willett’s books.) If this information is readily available, yet schools are still offering fruit juice, french fries, and pickles as their fruit and vegetable offerings on a given day, and using refined white flour in every bread product, and deep-frying most of their proteins, or using cheese as a protein, that is just completely pathetic, and it makes me sad. I wonder if the deep-fried stuff uses trans fat, which would be just criminal. I also have to say, it tends to take more work and skill to serve fruits and vegetables in a delicious way. Most kids are not going to eat canned corn, or limp iceberg and rubber tomatoes, or gray green beans. Maybe in the elementary schools, they are forced to have them on their trays, but I doubt many of them will eat much of them. When Jamie offered that delicious-looking stir fry, only to be told that it doesn’t have enough vegetables, but that french fries count as vegetables, I died a little inside. Also, how does the 1.25 cups thing work? If that is the raw measurement (for instance if 1.25 cups of salad would count), then each serving of stir-fry probably did have that much vegetable, it just cooked down. Also, why can’t they serve the stir-fry and leave their pathetic, ignored salad bar up as a nod to the regulations? ---
**Author:** ![Walkabout](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/46a35a/32.png) [@Walkabout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walkabout)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/149 "2010-04-05T18:53:11Z")
I found the menu for the school where Jamie Oliver is located,[Central City Elementary](http://boe.cabe.k12.wv.us/cnp/Current%20Elementary%20Middle%20Lunchmnu.htm) school in Cabell County. Interestingly, they show both the Cabell County offering and the Jamie Oliver offering for each day. ---
**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, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/150 "2010-04-05T19:02:57Z")
When I was in high school in the 1980s, there were 3 options: 1. You brought your own lunch. 2. You bought the lunch of the day. 3. You could buy the burger meal–a nasty little burger, fries dripping with grease, and a shake. This was available every day, so it’s not hard to believe that similar fare is being served up today at lower levels. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/151 "2010-04-05T19:04:32Z")
Here’s the [April lunch menu](http://www.lancaster.k12.pa.us/School_Menu.aspx?type=Lunch&School=EM) for a school in a smallish city district I attended as a wee flod. April has twenty school days, and we see here…[ul][li]pizza in some form served on five days[_]some sort of ground, formed, and breaded chicken served on four days (chicken nuggets twice, chicken “drummies”, chicken rondolet)[_]some form of ground beef on a roll served three times (“rib-b-cue” sandwich, meatball sandwich, cheeseburger)[_]hot dogs served twice, and[_]peanut butter and jelly sandwiches served twice - and they’re pre-packaged Uncrustables[/ul]That leaves four lunches. Depending on whether you count pre-made PBJs as “fast food” or not, that leaves either four or six lunches that aren’t built around fast food. I personally would not want my kids eating like that.[/li] A neighboring suburban district has a somewhat more varied [April menu](http://mtwp.net/index2.php?option=com_docman2&task=down&bid=3712/April_10_Elem_Menu.pdf) but there’s still a lot of convenience food on there. (What, pray tell, is a “Cheesy Pretzel Bun”?) The fact that there are choices helps, but is it fair to give first graders a choice between pizza and a turkey breast sandwich, and expect them to make a good choice? A bigger problem, though: guess which school district has more kids on the free lunch program - the kids who need a good meal at school the most? ---
**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, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/152 "2010-04-05T19:11:36Z")
> [@Athena](#): > > I don’t want crumbly cakey bread either. The whole wheat I eat isn’t a bit crumbly or cakey. It’s not like white bread, but it’s not like you describe, either. > > What brands are you trying? Have you tried any from a local bakery? There are several tasty varieties available in regular grocery stores, as well as in Trader Joe’s and Fresh and Easy. If one doesn’t have diverticulosis, the seedy, nutty variety is quite nice and does not fall apart. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/153 "2010-04-05T19:57:10Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > In hindsight I’m not sure I directly addressed your basic question. > > Being taller isn’t the better result in and of itself; being taller is merely the side effect. The real benefit of better nutrition is better brain development. > > This is why our meat-eating proto-human ancestors thrived while their closely-related vegetarian counterparts died out. Better nutrition from meat led to bigger brains, allowing superior adaptation to changing condidtions. However, Western style diets are being linked to increases in cancer in Asia (colon and breast cancer in particular). Maybe I’m biased, but I’d rather be short and flat chested. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/154 "2010-04-05T21:48:01Z")
Height is also correlated with intelligence. Would you really choose to have such poor nutrition so as to stunt your growth in order to marginally reduce the risk of later-in-life cancers that are some of the most detectable and treatable forms of cancer we know about? ---
**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, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/155 "2010-04-05T23:52:13Z")
> [@Walkabout](#): > > I found the menu for the school where Jamie Oliver is located,[Central City Elementary](http://boe.cabe.k12.wv.us/cnp/Current%20Elementary%20Middle%20Lunchmnu.htm) school in Cabell County. Interestingly, they show both the Cabell County offering and the Jamie Oliver offering for each day. BBQ Chicken sandwich and refried beans? Ewww… Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. ---
**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, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/156 "2010-04-05T23:54:55Z")
What’s wrong with BBQ chicken and refried beans? ---
**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, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/157 "2010-04-05T23:59:07Z")
Sounds good to me… but to kids? He’s paired off against the school’s offering of a fajita. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/158 "2010-04-06T00:11:56Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > People who get the vapors from reading curse words would probably be better off on another board. While I agree that singling out the word ‘cunt’ as being offensive was myopic, the statement was still a bit inappropriate. Ad hominem attacks might be allowed for public figures, but they don’t actually mean anything and add nothing at all to the conversation besides a :rolleyes: at the writer of them. If there is something about someone that you really think is ‘cunty’ or ‘evil’, say what it is, and let us judge for ourselves how to label it. > [@DanBlather](#): > > I hate the emphasis on whole grains. Whole wheat bread tastes like shit. People in France eat white bread, damn good white bread, and they are healthy because the rest of their diet is healthy. Well yeah.. but that misses the point doesn’t it? If you have white bread or rice, you might as well have a donut. It’s fine to have some amount of crap food as a _supplement_ to the meal (we tend to call it “dessert”, we just can’t count it as part of the real food. Whole wheat in general doesn’t taste bad. It’s true that some whole wheat bread is drier tasting than Wonderbread, but that’s not universally true. I personally am fond of bread from the Vermont Bread Co, which is whole or multigrain without HFCS and still tastes quite nice, especially if unrefrigerated. I personally think white rice doesn’t taste very good unless it’s very very moist and either salted or mixed with something else that has flavor. I absolutely despise the kind of brown rice you get at Chinese restaurants, but I quite like other non white rices. > [@EllisDee](#): > > This is why our meat-eating proto-human ancestors thrived while their closely-related vegetarian counterparts died out. Better nutrition from meat led to bigger brains, allowing superior adaptation to changing condidtions. That seems somewhat skewed the way that you phrased it. Have a cite for that? > [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](#): > > (I’m pulling this info from the studies amassed by the Harvard School of Public Health and from Walter Willett’s books.) Cite? Not in the usual sense of I don’t believe you, but in the sense of I’d like to get my hands on that 🙂 IOW is that online somewhere or is it in book form? > [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](#): > > When Jamie offered that delicious-looking stir fry, only to be told that it doesn’t have enough vegetables, but that french fries count as vegetables, I died a little inside. Also, how does the 1.25 cups thing work? If that is the raw measurement (for instance if 1.25 cups of salad would count), then each serving of stir-fry probably did have that much vegetable, it just cooked down. Yeah, this really confused me and I wish they had gone into more detail. By what criteria do those pizzas count as two breads but the rice didn’t - and why couldn’t they just serve more rice then? In general, what is the unit of measurement for each food group, and why do certain things count as being equivalent that are vastly different? 😕 ---
**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 6, 2010, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/159 "2010-04-06T00:24:03Z")
White bread/rice = a doughnut? Come on, seriously? This is kind of like when people would start posting that if you were drinking fruit juice, you might as well just drink soda and take Vitamin C tablets. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990/160 "2010-04-06T00:28:02Z")
I also wanted to mention that I thought his use of drumsticks to be somewhat… yucky. While I agree that mass produced chicken nuggets aren’t the best, I think a nice breaded filet is much preferable to chicken on the bone… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/533990.md?page=9)