Jamie Oliver and Michelle Obama have plans for our schools’ kitchens. Their goals are identical — remove much of the fat, additives and starch from our children’s diets — but Oliver has the advantage of a cooking career that started when he was 8 to back up his menu recommendations.
His cooking credentials are all-important to this dietary shift because children’s tastes in food are emotional, and are often about aesthetic appeal. They would surely never use that term, but look at their language of food rejection: “yuck,” “ewww,” “nasty,” “disgusting.” These words are always accompanied by a grimace, frown or other facial contortion. How can adults turn that frown upside down?
Oliver’s platform for a successful “Food Revolution” includes cooking lessons for kids and their parents, and that’s key in shifting perception of what’s tasty. Taking pleasure in cooking fresh ingredients will go a long way toward that goal, but the first step is convincing schoolchildren that red and green food is as desirable as the golden food that is the current norm at most schools.
To this end, Oliver has a “pyramid scheme” that just might get us moving in the right direction. He claims that if one person teaches three friends a beautiful and healthy recipe, then this only has to be replicated 25 times to cover the entire population of America. If you detect a certain messianic zeal, that is no accident.
The original title of Oliver’s “Food Revolution” cookbook in the U.K. was “Ministry of Food,” and for Oliver, teaching people to love healthy food is a ministry. He is convinced that changing bad eating and cooking habits will change not only health and family life, but also school performance: Schools in Greenwich, London, improved test scores in English and math after adopting Oliver’s meal plan for a year.
What kids are reading
This weekly column will look at lists of books kids are reading in various categories, including grade level, book genre and data from booksellers. Information on the books below came from the New York Times Book Review, April 11, 2010.
Children’s books recommended by the New York Times
1. Sylvia Long’s Thumbelina Illustrated by Sylvia Long (ages 4 to 8)
2. The Last Summer of the Death Warriors by Francisco X. Stork (ages 12 and up)
3. Saving the Baghdad Zoo by Kelly Milner Halls with Maj. William Sumner (ages 8 and up)
4. Shake, Rattle and Turn That Noise Down! by Mark Alan Stamaty (ages 5 to 8)
5. The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place by Maryrose Wood (ages 8 to 12)
6. My Garden by Kevin Henkes (ages 2 to 7)
7. Poetry Speaks Who I Am Edited by Elise Paschen (ages 12 to 16)
8. Nibbles, A Green Tale by Charlotte Middleton (ages 4 to 8)
If Oliver and Obama are lead singers in praise of fresh, healthy food for all — especially our children — then Mario Batali (as seen on “Iron Chef America”) and a host of other food gurus play backup to their hymns. Batali’s latest cookbook, “Molto Gusto: Easy Italian Cooking,” may not explicitly try to change the diets of schoolchildren the way Oliver’s cookbook does, but the photographs and ingredients are designed to make us all believe that the era of bland, tasteless “health food” is long gone. Even pizza — vilified by Oliver in its school incarnation — becomes healthy with Batali’s thin crust and fresh vegetable toppings. Spaghetti and “dressed up” vegetables undergo their own transformations, showing how Batali’s recipes could work in tandem with Oliver’s to improve the nutritional value of cafeteria standbys.
What makes this food as easy to prepare as frozen French fries or chicken nuggets? My next column will look at Oliver’s “mix and match” salads, his chicken or beef stir-fry (as prepared in the street by 1000 Huntington, W.Va., residents, including the converted local talk show host), and some of Batali’s spins on recipes that will turn old fatty favorites into healthy alternatives for our homes and schools. The message of this “Food Revolution” is clear: When we learn to enjoy preparing fresh ingredients and change school lunch from “yuck” to “yum,” our children’s lives will change both in quality and longevity.
Erica Jacobs, whose column appears Wednesday, teaches at George Mason University. E-mail her at [email protected].
