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…
Well then, you obviously have never tried Mama Celeste’s Thin Crust Pizza. It is not greasy nor cardboard. Quite a lovely microwave pizza. The packaging actually crisps the crust. 5 for 6, on sale.
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.”
I know the pizza these kids are getting, and it is definitely NOT Mama Celeste’s.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
…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?
Do you think all sugars metabolize the same?
I regret giving the benefit of the doubt.
I think all fructose and their concentrations or byproducts metabolize the same.
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.?
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.
That’s not the question I asked. Do you think all sugars metabolize the same?
This show is based on what he’s been doing in England. Hehas been “addressing” the situation in Britain for a good while.