The Jamie Oliver Food Revolution….

After watching the premiere of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, its fair to say that Jamie had his work cut out for him. He arrives at Central City Elementary school to find Pizza being served for breakfast. Pizza! Doesn’t anyone realize that these are elementary students not college students?

Next was lunch, which consisted of processed Chicken nuggets and mashed potatoes made with potato pearls? What are potato pearls? They are potato pellets made with potatoes, salt, partially hydrogenated canola oil, mono and diglycerides, artificial color, artificial flavour. Freshness preserved w/ sodium bisulfite and BHT. These pellets are mixed with water and whipped up to make mashed potato’s. Yuck! To top it off this meal is washed down with either strawberry or chocolate milk.

Not only does Jamie have the challenge of changing the school’s menus but he also has to deal with ‘The Lunch Ladies’! They do don’t want him there which is apparent by their cold demeanour and resistance to change. Also Jamie called them ‘The Lunch Ladies’ which earned him the evil eye from Alice. Way to win them over Jamie, I believe the correct term for ‘Lunch Ladies’ is Cafeteria Cooks (?)

Jamie pulls out all the stops to get his message across. He has dressed up like a giant pea, to get the kids excited about their new lunch menu, but that did not work. Then he tried the more drastic approach where he cuts up a whole chicken in front of a group of kids. He puts the chicken carcass in a food processor once he had a sloppy gooey mess he tells the kids this is what their nuggets are made of. They made faces but once Jamie finished cooking the chicken nuggets
he asked the kids if they would still eat them knowing what they are made of. They all said YES! Oh no Jamie now what?

Jamie is not detoured he has more tricks under his belt. He gets the parents to come to the school and he shows them how much chocolate milk their kids are consuming, and adds the Sloppy Joes to the mix. This trick works, the parents want change! Jamie’s point hits home. Smart move Jamie, but he still has to contend with the school and get them to want to make the change to fresh cooked. Jamie as one last chance to win Ronda over so that he can stay on another week. Ronda is in charge of all food purchases for the Huntington schools, and Jamie is over budget and hasn’t given her the nutritional assessments of the meals that is required. Will she let him stay?

Ronda decides to give Jamie another week to prove to everyone that this change is doable. Jamie has a lot of work to do, he needs to win over Alice because that is one ‘Lunch Lady’ that you want to have on your side. He has to come within budget and get his nutritional assessments in. Will next week be better for Jamie? I guess we’ll have to tune in next Friday to fine out.

Good Luck Jamie, the Cookin Greens Team is routing for you!

Natalie
The Cookin Greens Team