3/22/2010

"CONFIDENCE PILLS" AND HEALTHY DIETS. Food revolution.

www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2006/05/17/jamie_o...
I'm sure many of you know this guy, Jamie Oliver, the chef. He is really involved in many, many things ( I wonder if he can get some sleep!) but his main "battle" at present has to do with our topic: Jamie's food revolution . He is a father so he also focuses a lot on schools (ministry of food campaing, school dinners campaing... )Don't miss his recipease, healthy(and Mediterranean) recipes, today's recipe. Have a look: http://www.jamieoliver.com/campaigns/ http://www.jamieoliver.com/about
"Jamie has made a new series for American TV about food – how families eat, what kids get at school and why, like the UK, the diet of processed food and snacks is causing so many health and obesity problems. The series was filmed in Huntington, West Virginia.Jamie's challenge was to see if he can get a whole community cooking again. He worked with the school lunch ladies and local families to get everyone back in the kitchen and making tasty meals with fresh ingredients – no packets, no cheating. He's started a Food Revolution: to get people all over America to reconnect with their food and change the way they eat."
Please, watch as much as you can of this video (I know, Mr. Oliver speaks really fast but you just need a general idea to start practicing) and DO NOT MISS minute 11 , when he is in a school with children, you'll be open-mouthed! Is this our future?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIwrV5e6fMY

Don't forget to write some lines...

24 comments:

  1. Paloma Blanco3/23/10, 8:25 PM

    I like very much Oliver´s programs. I have followed him a lot and I always find him very funny the way he cooks: he likes to touch the food, to lick his fingers if necessary something I find strange for a cook. I think he has a lovely house with a very big garden in Essex where he grows vegetables and he picks up some of them and then he cooks them for instance in a salad or just fried them. He started this same campaign in the UK to teach parents and children to eat healthy and was very focused specially in what children eat in their school. The minute 11 remindes me once my little nephew asked my dear mum what was she cleaning, it was a squid and he said it was impossible as squid are ring-shape. It was first time he saw a real squid as he was used to eat the pre-cooked ones.It was very funny as well as this children on the program that can not distinguish a tomatoe from a potatoe.

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  2. I discovered Oliver's program last year, and although I must admit that I am a "disaster-chef", I found his program very interesting and I saw it always that was possible, just to enjoy seeing how he prepared all these exotic recipes and how funny he made cooking (something that has always seemed to me very boring).
    But I didn't know that he was so involved to fight obesity and teach about good cooking habits.
    There are some parts of the speech that I found very difficult to understand, because he speaks really fast; and it impressed me some scenes, specially the one that appear a coffin that seems a bed in the minute 5:57.
    It is also very surprising when he is in a school and the children cannot distinguish the differents vegetables that he shows.

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  3. Hi, I am George:
    the video has been amazing. But, I think it is really very common, even in our country. Somebody said "you are what you eat" . It is a big true.
    Children is normal that they are confussed of the vegetables names. Some case can be rare. But, in general is normal.

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  4. Elena de los Cobos3/25/10, 9:22 PM

    Hello, I´ve just wathched Oliver´s video. I had never listened to him before. I´ve found the video very interesting, but I work in a school as caretaker and I have luch there, and I must say Spanish food is much healthier than that of the United States. Fish and vegetables are in the weekly diet. I couldn´t beleive the children couldn´t recognize aubergine and other vegetables. I think that wouldn´t happened in a Spanish School. But, unfortunately we tend to imitate Americans in junk food, skate, and these kind of things and in the future, if we don´t educate children on healthy food, obesity will kill millions of peaple. I´m overwaigh myself but I try to eat healthy food.

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  5. Hi Paloma, your entires are better and better!
    Silvia, you are right, Mr. Oliver's enthusiasm is really contagious, cooking seems so easy with him! May be that's the reason of his great, great success.
    Elena! you must have first hand info, then. I agree, I think most Spanish schools have healthy menus...and cutlery!!!!!
    Yes, George, you are very right, we are what we eat, that's why we must be careful but I wuold also say, we are whay we do not exercise, as not only overeating but lack of exercise is our great problem: we are too tired or we have no time for exercise...

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  6. sorry Paloma, you entries!!

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  7. ARRGGHH!! I hate this guy! He nevers stays still! Always moving fast around the kitchen, like a hockey puck! The day I discovered that Jamie is a complete overrated bluff was when I saw his TV program dedicated to Spanish 'Tapas'.
    The guy got on his scooter, drived to a Spanish products shop, bought some chorizo, olives and guindillas. When he returned to his kitchen, he opened the olives and guindillas can, sliced some chorizo and thats it! Instant Spanish Tapas, and thats all for today folks! Hope you enjoyed my elaborated and complex 'cuisine'.
    What the h&%$??? I can do that too!
    I swear its true.

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  8. Mª. Covadonga Glez. Bernardo3/27/10, 10:22 PM

    Hi! I've been watching Jamie's programmes for some time. It's not quite que kind of food I prepare at home but I find the programms interesting to watch. And I certainly like his way of explaining things and how he "feels" the ingredients.
    I think it's great that he tries to make people eat healthier. I'm a mother of a 4 year old and I am very worried about the bad influences he receives from his environment. People eat such junk!!! Even at school: yes, desserts are OK (dairy product or fruit), but they serve too much protein and the menus lack vegetables: once a week is not enough! So he almost always has some vegetables for dinner. It's funny, because when he gets vegetables at school I usually prepare him some rice or pasta for dinner and first thing he says when sitting himself at the table is : where are my vegetables?
    Cheers,
    Covadonga

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  9. I have never heard about this guy and just like Diego, he has achieved get on my nerves with so much walk up and down. On the other hand, this boy reminds me of Karlos Arguiñano. I used to watch him on TV but any longer. I got tired of his meals because at the end he mixed all ingredients for no particular reason and my family like simple meals.
    As for the children, parents are responsible of their education in all senses so we have to teach them to eat what we call "good". One day I ask my children's pediatrician about the meals and she answer that everybody hasn't to eat each and every one of the food but what it was really important was to eat of all kind of foods, vegetables, pulse, pasta, nuts, fish... and that is precisely what I do. I recognize that my mother spoilt me and now it is very difficult for me to taste new foods and flavours but I try to do that although I repeat chard twice per week (I love chard).

    Cheers,
    Cristina González Angós

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  10. Cristina Tejera3/30/10, 3:21 PM

    Hi, like most of us, I've never heard of Jamie's programs. Personaly I don't like this kind of programs, and the people who speak on them, because they are forced to speak all the time and most of the times they explain things that are not abaout cooking, they are personal things that I don't think they should explain on TV shows.

    Cristina

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  11. I agree completely with Jamie. I have two children and know how important are the food habits. I haven't ever had any problem with their eating vegetables, legumes, fish or fruit, because they have got used to them from very little. I have seen some programmes of Jamie, and I find quite interesting,on the contrary of others chef's, because he explains the receipes in a fresh and dinamic way, and I don't try to follow the receipes literally. In my case it was a question of taking some ideas. And I also agree with him about the mediterranean cooking as the best.
    Lucía Sanz

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  12. Diego, I felt like you some time ago, I felt like shouting at him -well at the telly- "sit down for a while!!!" About the Tapas, I agree as well, but I'd say - as in "Some like it hot", the film, "Nobody is perfect!"
    Covadonga and me agree in one (I believe) important point: he tries to teach us how to cook quickly and healthy.
    Cristina G., ( I love chard too AND spinach)Yes, what I like best about Oliver are the series about schools and healthy food for children. As you I did not enjoy that much those at that apartment where he cooked for his friends.
    Cristina T., No, I don't think he talks about other things but food and probably the best of it all is to do what Lucía Sanz says: to pick up ideas and then do what we feel or what we find is better for us.

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  13. Of course I know Jamie!!! I have one of his books and I have become the perfect house wife thanks to him, I cook delicious food easy to make for my family, which by the way are quite please with the change in our diet!!, because after bying his book I decide to by some other similar books.
    Thank you jamie!!!

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  14. I have known Jamie's programmes for a long time as I lived in England when he was just starting up. He can be annoying but what I admire is his commitment to change things for the better. He knows a lot about food and worries about the way things are going in the diet world. I watched the TED prize award video and found it shocking at times. Those kids not being able to recognise any vegetable or fruit really makes you wonder where we are heading as human beings. We are detaching ourselves from certain realities that create a distorted view of life (in the UK, for instace, you'll never find in any supermarket animals with their heads on, or be served a fish with its head in a restaurant. So kids never know how the real animal looks like and, more importantly, the sense of death is removed from the item). It is worrying indeed, and makes you wonder if the anglosaxon culture will spread to countries like the Mediterranean where people are more used to cooking and have seen their mothers, fathers, aunts, grandmas, etc cooking.
    But I still remember a dish he cooked up, a sort of paella with black pudding, chorizo, bacon and more stuff but no vegetables that would have made anyone's arteries explode. THAT wasn't very healthy.....

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  15. Jamie Oliver´s been marketing food in many different ways for quite a few years now,through books and shows and the restaurants he´s opened up round Great Britain. He´s an immensely successful British celebrity. However, just as with delicious food, you can have enough of other things too and Mr. Oliver for me is no exception!! His over-trendy manner can really begin to irritate even the most patient of people!!

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  16. Bruce Tarlton4/16/10, 1:56 PM

    One more thing I wanted to comment. He also was hired by Tony Blair´s government to market healthy diets in British schools. It all turned out to be a bit of a gimmick - the idea was to distribute free apples during breaktime. I doubt very much that this has solved the problem of obesity within British society!!

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  17. Hi all!!!

    I find this video very interesting and useful, despite of I really don't like this kind of "propaganda", but in this case It is probably more than necessary. I think that to be able to move with society to the better direction, this man has to move the majority and majority has to be impressed (and it doesn't matter if with positive or negative emotions) to start moving, so... :)

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  18. Hello there!

    I confess I'm not very fond of this kind of programmes: I find them stressful, haha. When I went to live on my own, I bought Simone Ortega's cd-rom "1080 Recetas de Cocina- La cocina interactiva de Simone Ortega" and it really helped me learn to cook! There's a new edition on paper with international recipes and a lot of pictures explaining how to do things. I strongly recommend it to all of you who'd like to spend some relaxing time cooking gorgeous all-time recipes.

    Cheers!

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  19. Thank you all for your comments. I really feel good reading all your ideas or points of view as they are very different so I can think about other perspectives as the rest of readers. Cheers!!

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  20. Hi, Truly this guy is a little stressful , but i get the idea , and I'm totally agree with him. We have to change some of our food habits,we must be aware about all the bad ingredientes that are inside the industrial products...and specially we have to protect the childhood , because a good education in how to eat is a guarantee of eating better in the future ,and therefore , be healthier.

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  21. Isabel Bosoko4/25/10, 8:36 PM

    My husband is very fond of cooking. He used to watch canal cocina on tv where we've discovered Jamie's programme for a couple of years. I personally don´t like much the way he mixes some ingredients, but I have to regonize he is very funny and you can learn some interesting recipes. For example, thank's Jamie Oliver we are able to prepare our own home made pastries and doghs for bread and pizza, and we haven´t ordered any pizza from a restaurant anymore. It's cheaper and tastes better!!!

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  22. mari llanos bernabeu4/28/10, 10:44 AM

    Hello, I have seen Jamie Oliver's tv program, but now it isn't on spanish tv. Where I can see it? I love that program.
    Thanks

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  23. These are good and clever points: Just get the general idea and get the best for us, whether you love Mr. Oliver or not, we must make the most of what we get.

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  24. I lived in the UK for a couple of years, so obviously, I know who this man is. I remember at the time he was doing this TV show where he travelled through Italy learning to cook the "Mediterranean" way, and he also went to Italian schools to see how they cooked for the kids and he was "amazed" to see they used real tomato in the kids' pasta (ehem). So I guess in countries like the USA or the UK (too much fast food and in London you see so much people living on take way food, it's crazy!) something like this makes sense. But thank God in Spain and other European countries we still know what real food tastes like so I don't think we would be amazed if our kids knew what an onion is, right? That's why, even though I admire his intentions, sometimes I found myself laughing while I was watching his show...

    By the way, it's funny how in the United Kingdom a lot of people critize him because he has gained a lot of weight in the last few years. For someone that is always talking about obesity, it makes you think if he follows his own advice. Mmmm...

    María Badía Santiago

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