Crotch rashes! Guerilla warfare! Mountains of junk food! We’ve got a lot to cover in this week’s recap of Jamie Oliver’s “Food Revolution,” so settle in, people . . . .
The episode opens at West Adams High School, the Los Angeles USD charter school where Jamie Oliver has been filming his work with a culinary class (but where, per a district edict, he’s forbidden from filming in the cafeteria.) As it did last week, the culinary class cooks lunch for a hundred students, this time a selection of salads and a bean wrap. (Raise hands if you screamed at the TV, “Don’t eat the alfalfa sprouts!”) Jamie wants to offer this meal to students in lieu of the LAUSD meal but, as noted last week, we don’t ever hear what the food costs and the student labor is obviously free, so it’s really an apples to oranges comparison. But the meal looks delicious and is well received by the students eating it.
After the meal is served, Hipster Charter School Dude (aka Mentor L.A. CEO Mike McGalliard) shows up with some news. (Totally irrelevant side note: have you ever seen anyone whose “casual” look –hair gelled just so, stubble, v-neck-with-blazer, German architect glasses –is so obviously studied? I laugh every time I see this guy.) The news is that Jamie, who wants to serve his meals to the whole school, will now be permitted to do so if he incorporates cooking lessons into the school’s “advisory” class, a class that prepares kids for college and teaches them good health habits. But we never see the advisory class in this episode – maybe next week?
Then Jamie teaches a West Adams math class. He offers the students a snack — either a large cup of soda, a chocolate bar, an orange, or a piece of pizza — and then discusses the consequences of food choices. He says most girls need 1,800 calories per day and boys 2,200, and that just two months of poor food choices could cause a girl to gain twenty pounds, while a boy could gain thirty pounds in four months. He straps weights onto the kids’ bodies to show them what that excess weight would feel like, and then he sends them around the school track to burn off whatever snack they chose. (E.g., eating an orange — 62 calories — requires three laps, while a chocolate bar — 220 calories — requires eleven laps.)
I don’t love the idea of asking kids to count calories rather than getting them to think about and improve their food choices in a more holistic way, but it’s hard to argue with the effectiveness of this lesson. So many kids (and adults, for that matter) eat mindlessly and poorly and either don’t know or don’t care about the possible consequences. No doubt these students will think twice the next time they reach for a soda instead of water.
Then we’re introduced to a new family, the Barretts. Denny Barrett is a single dad with two boys and he doesn’t know the first thing about cooking. The family eats fast food eight or nine times per week and “meals” at home often consist of microwaved convenience food. We also learn that breakfast is sometimes donuts — or even potato chips. I was glad to see Jamie again working with a family, which I found to be the most compelling aspect of the show’s first season in Huntington, WVA. But I did wonder why J.O. didn’t choose the family of Sofia, the West Adams student we met in previous episodes whose family has been devastated by diabetes and whose eating habits (based on what Sofia has told us) are terrible. (Maybe the producers asked and the family refused?)
At any rate, similar to his show in Huntington, Jamie fills the Barretts’ car with one month’s worth of all the fast food they eat. The Barretts make all the appropriate expressions of regret and disgust but then, completely redundantly, the family comes home to find their house filled with one year’s worth of the same food. The Barretts (and no doubt most viewers) seem perplexed that the stunt is being repeated, and they looked hard pressed to come up with new ways of expressing their regret and disgust.
And of course, the food does look sickening when heaped together like that, but frankly, I’m growing tired of this gimmick. I’m not sure what it does for the family — both the dad and the boys already know they have a problem and are more than ready to change their ways– and even though it’s not the healthiest fare, it did bother me to see mountains of food wasted just for a few minutes of shock value on television. For the millions of food insecure Americans, eating that food would be better than no food at all.
To show Denny that cooking is easy and affordable, Jamie sends him off to buy a typical fast food meal for the family. While Denny’s gone, Jamie and the two boys prepare a lunch of chicken in a homemade tomato sauce, a shredded “rainbow” salad, the dressing for the salad and a beverage. Denny takes forty-five minutes to buy his meal, which cost $31. Jamie’s meal took thirty minutes to prepare and cost $23. The family gathers at the table (which Jamie earlier referred to as “the altar in your home,” a nice way to put it) and Denny gets emotional recalling the family dinners he grew up with. (My daughter and I were wondering, though, whether the kids actually liked the meal they’d prepared — they both looked a little unhappy eating it, we thought.) Jamie promises that his team will come by for “five or six days” to help Denny learn how to shop and cook going forward.
As someone who cooks almost every night and is a big believer in the value of weeknight family dinners, I liked watching this segment of the show. But I wondered if a five- or six-day crash course from Jamie’s team will be enough to really turn this family’s deeply ingrained fast food habit around. I also felt it was a little unfair for Jamie to say that his meal took only thirty minutes, when of course shopping for all that food and cleaning up after the cooking takes significantly more time. I hope Jamie follows up with this family later in the season so that we can see how they’re doing.
Next Jamie takes over a social studies class at West Adams High and brings in a group of adults who have diet-related health problems. There are people who are morbidly obese and/or have high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes. Many of them exhibit the horrible consequences of diabetes, like neuropathy, amputated limbs and poor eyesight. The students become very emotional when speaking with these adults; Jamie says he wanted the kids to “meet their future,” but now sees that many are already well acquainted with these diseases, as most have parents or grandparents who suffer from them.
This was a very moving segment of the show, but I wasn’t happy with where we went next. Jamie strongly implies that LAUSD is somehow responsible for these kids (or their families???) poor health. He tells us that after the emotional social studies class, there’s a “weird air” around the school and that everyone is “very scared,” and then we learn J.O.’s filming permit has been revoked by LAUSD. Because of the way the show sets things up, the viewer is led to believe that LAUSD was somehow so threatened by the social studies class (but again, how is LAUSD responsible for Grandma’s diabetes?) that it yanked the permits.
I would bet the timing was purely coincidental and, not for the first time, I felt manipulated by the show for the sake of heightening the drama. But whatever the reason for the revocation of the permit, Jamie is furious and says that “We’re the good guys” and “the system [i.e., LAUSD] is the bad guy.” He vows to be like a “rash in their crotch” (!) by “going guerilla,” i.e., setting up his own kitchen right next to West Adams for use by the students, parents and teachers.
The show ends with Jamie attending another school board meeting and, as in the first episode, everything possible is done to make the school board members look as shifty and sinister as possible. For example, the reaction shots of the board members when Jamie is speaking have always looked “off” to me — the board members usually seem zoned out or looking off to the side and I wonder if the show’s film editors are playing with us there. (Second irrelevant side note: how many people were happy to see Crazy Guy giving another of his nutty rants to the school board? If he really is mentally unstable, my apologies, but I’m still convinced he’s an out-of-work actor hoping for a big break.)
Jamie does a great job of vilifying then-Superintendent Ray Cortines, claiming he’s afraid of transparency. To his credit, Cortines doesn’t pass the buck at the meeting. He vigorously defends LAUSD school food and tells Jamie that he is solely responsible for the decision to prevent J.O. from filming. Cortines says, “You and your company have attempted to make the school district a stage,” and it’s pretty hard to argue with that. Jamie isn’t allowed to respond, but he does skewer LAUSD by showing us a Power Point slide from the meeting in which LAUSD says, “Excellence has nothing to fear from observation.”
Ouch.
OK, that’s my wrap-up of Episode Four. Now let me know what you thought in a comment below.
[Ed Note: I’d thought this episode was the last of this season (and maybe forever as the show has not yet been renewed, to my knowledge), but fellow Houston Chronicle blogger Ed Truitt of Tubular tells me there are two more episodes, the last to appear on June 24th. You can compare my impressions of this episode with Ed’s by reading his Tubular recap here.]
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Lauren says
Totally, totally, totally agree with all of it. I hated watching all that food go to waste, regardless of the fact that I generally refer to it as “garbage” to begin with. And the second stunt was just unnecessary.
That being said, I must admit that this has been one of my favorite episodes, if not my favorite. I thought it had great educational value, and, like you, I’m also glad he worked with a family again. I think another reason I enjoyed this episode is because it didn’t contain any segments in that stupid restaurant. 😛 I’m sick of that little project of his.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Lauren: I agree – enough Deno!
Bri says
On point, as always, Bettina!
The math lesson: Effective, maybe, but yes, I stand firmly by my conviction that “weight” is not the enemy. Jamie’s increasingly using obesity as his marker, and it’s a red herring. HEALTH should be the focus. As we continue to encourage things like calorie counting as the be-all and end-all of “healthy” eating, we only end up in a bigger mess than the one we started with. I also worry about the possibility of fueling disordered eating patterns in teens with these “mathematical” equations. (“J.O. said I need 1800 calories to maintain my weight! What if I go lower than that? What if I go REALLY low? And then I can do all those laps around the track to try to burn off the food I eat!”) It makes me uncomfortable.
Re: The Social Studies class. Talk about uncomfortable. Frankly, this was NOT a well-designed lesson. If JO wanted the kids to learn a Social Studies lesson about their communities, he should have offered the opportunity for the kids to interview those people and present their findings, not just shove them face-to-face in the middle of the group like a therapy session gone wrong and make the kids listen while all these emotions got thrown around with reckless abandon. There was really minimal educational value here. Not to mention the horrible ending where JO was like, “Oh, I feel bad for you all. Now take a deep breath and leave class!” The poor teacher had to step in and salvage things by introducing a better ending with some redeeming value: “Um, can you all go back to your groups and talk about a positive solution for the community?” Terrible. I felt so badly for that teacher and her students. Frankly, I was outraged at JO for that one. It was shoddy from an educational standpoint, as well as from a counseling technique standpoint, and it was shameless grandstanding at the expense of all the people in the room.
However, I did like the in-home work he did with the family. Like you, I thought perhaps Sofia’s family had declined to participate. At least we saw him working with people to implement actual SOLUTIONS this time, instead of just fearmongering and playing the blame game with no tangible evidence of CHANGE coming to the surface.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Totally agree with your points, Bri, and especially re obesity as a red herring. As my 11-year old pointed out, the Barrett kids who had eaten fast food 8-9 times a week were NOT overweight. But still a terribly unhealthy way to live. And yes, the end of that class was so awkward! He unleashed this emotion and then seemed not to know what to do with it.
Bri says
Funny, my husband said almost the same thing to me about the Barrett kids. As you know, our 4 year old is a little overweight, and J. turned to me when he saw those kids and said “See? You can’t tell me you’d rather have L. have that diet and those bodies than his diet and his body.” (Not that I think for a moment that if we fed L. fast food, he’d be thinner…but I understood his point!)
And I keep wondering if there was a school counselor present in the room when JO did that Social studies lesson. If not, there should have been. Coming from years of work in educational design and some counseling work, I just keep thinking of all the things that were so, so wrong in that lesson. I hope those kids who were really visibly bothered got support after the fact.
Dana Woldow says
Back in early April, right before episode one of the current season aired, I posted a comment on TLT which said:
“My biggest gripe is about the way JO portrays the schools as being the stumbling block, rather than the lack of funding. My fear is that the new series will focus even more on JO’s party line that the schools are “the bad guys” and “getting away with murder”, which really does not promote any kind of constructive dialog between parents and their school nutrition director.
“Perhaps my fears are unfounded; perhaps he will not bash the LAUSD and will rightly trace the root of the problem back to Federal underfunding of the school meal program. No one would be happier than I to see him do that.”
http://tinyurl.com/6epxlcg
Sorry to say that my worst fears have been realized. Is there any doubt now about who is being shown as “the bad guys” here?
How does it help when people are encouraged to blame the schools (as Jamie does) for the fact that kids aren’t being taught to cook, or getting sufficient nutrition education?
Regarding learning to cook for oneself or one’s family, no one needs to go to school to learn that. By the time I was the age of that younger boy we saw (10) I had already learned to cook by opening up a kids’ cookbook and following the directions. Believe me it is not rocket science. By the time I was the age of the older boy (14) I could turn out a simple yet sufficient dinner for my family when asked.
I get it that the dad says he never learned to cook, but has he never acquired a single skill as an adult? [Interestingly, for a man who says he never cooks and who apparently doesn’t even have a dishwasher, the family did have a food processor, which the kids used when they made lunch, but I digress.]
Why is there even an expectation that it is the dad who must cook for the kids? He is working all day and the kids are not toddlers; why aren’t they pitching in to help? That’s what happens in all of the single-parent families I know (and many of the dual parent families too) – kids are expected to help, not be waited on by the parent(s). How is it the fault of the schools that this adult has not ever cooked a meal, nor have his kids? Most people who cook in this country didn’t learn it at school.
As for the nutrition education, the whole question of what schools are required to teach, and why, is more than anyone (even JO) can cover in a few minutes of reality TV, but let’s just say that if the people of this country want nutrition education taught in schools, then it needs to be one of the tested subjects, because education in this country has devolved to the point where the ONLY material that gets covered is that which will be on the standardized tests. And no one knows this better than the LAUSD, where the home town newspaper (you may have heard of it – the LA Times?) has been conducting a witchhunt this past year against teachers, publishing their class test scores and demanding that those scores be the single most important factor in whether the teachers retain their jobs (completely ignoring factors beyond the teachers’ control, factors which have been shown to be far more accurate predictors of academic success or failure, factors like, you know, poverty.)
I am all for nutrition education; I truly believe we will get nowhere with getting kids to eat better in school just by changing the food – kids need to have some skin in the game, and the best way for them to get it (and JO does do this quite well) is through nutrition education. But seriously, pretending that it is the fault of the schools that the current teach-to-the-test mania doesn’t allow time for frills like nutrition ed, is beyond ridiculous. But, just like the LA Times, for JO it is all about blaming the schools for things beyond their control.
damaged justice says
Yes, let’s have more “nutrition education” about how you need to eat more hearthealthywholegrains, and how all that arterycloggingsaturatedfat will kill you dead. Because unless you teach it yourself, that’s the only kind you’re going to get.
Barry says
Thank you once again for posting about JO and what is happening. If it were not for tevelesion ratings, ads sold duing the show and publicity for JO, just how concerned would he be? The issue of childhood obesity, adult obesity is not new but certainly shows like JO want to point the fingers at school food service operations as the culprit. When JO points the finger at chocloate milk as the biggest problem, how sad to use THIS as the whipping post.
The change in nutrition includes eating habit, food produciton and distribution and big improvements HAVE been made. The USDA has statistics that show a large increase in fruit & veggie consumption but this fact is not talked about.
Cooking at home can be cheaper but where does the education come from?
Healthy Weight at Any Size
Sophie says
Barry, I so agree with you on your insights here. I was a very overweight child and while we did have foods offered in a cafeteria in my high school, we never had any school offered food in my public elementary and middle schools here in the Bay Area. Guess what? I was very heavy by the time I was 10 because of what I was eating with my family. School food had no impact on this obese child.
Choosing to focus on chocolate milk also narrows the dialogue, rather than lookming at the myriad of factors that impact kids’ health.
Finally, I don’t watch JO on TV but have used Hulu. I find it terribly ironic that the ad on my viewing is for carnation instant breakfast (available in multiple flavors.) Because I am now so self-educated on food, nutrition, etc. as a middle aged school food professional, I know instant breakfast is powdered lactose with extra sugar and a sprinkling of vitamins. Does the average viewer see the connection and tragic irony? Maybe not.
cassie says
I too did not understand the point of piling all that food in the car. Would a month’s worth of healthy food be any more appetizing? No. Plus as you pointed out the family had already admitted they eat too much of it. That demonstration might be more effective with a family that wasn’t aware of how much they were eating. PS My sons didn’t find the meal to be very appetizing either.
Melissa House says
I agree with what everyone wrote. I do think JO needs to take him movement to more of an educational level to produce better results. He is good with education, but his fight is way out of his hands with the school system. I do think he should make a reality tv show teaching kids how to cook. Currently there are no shows geared at teaching children these basic needs. Everything Food Network is the next top chef, cake decorating, cook offs, and competition type events. There can be a Rachael Ray out their using a childhood idle. Thank is just one idea I am sure there are several ways to teach kids.
I do think the lesson with the community was pretty staged event. I find it hard to see children really crying in class, or being that affect by, kids believe they are resilient, and I don’t care how many times you tell them it is bad for them, most will continue on doing what they love to do, especially eating hot Cheetos during class. It takes time and many lessons to teach students, and like everything else, it has to always be engaging.
I too, noticed right away, the family he teaches to cook are not over weight. This did not fit the profile I see around me. Next, I don’t know about you guys, but $31 to eat fast food? Eat this 7 to 9 times a week? That is very expensive. I would have like to have seen how he made his tomato sauce from scratch, purchase organic vegis (instead of promoting Jolly Green Giant) and cook them, and the dressing they made, all in 30 min. I don’t think so! The part that turned me off the most, and I have worked as a manager for food service for many years, and witnessed food dropping on the floor, when JO did not wash off the chicken and taught the boy a stupid 3 min rule, I was totally grossed out. How can you (JO) call yourself a chef (true chefs know food science) and do what you did, on TV!!!! I was floored! Maybe it is not such a great idea for JO to start another TV show teaching children, because what he just taught as a chef, was disgusting.
I will have to stop after that note.
Sheila Z says
Schools used to teach cooking, sewing, etc. It was called Home Economics when I went to school. The boys had Shop class. Five years later when my sister was in school they made the classes Co-ed and both boys and girls took these classes. By the time my kids were in school these classes were dropped and Computer Literacy classes were taught. I guess they decided we were all going to do office jobs in our cubical and buy take out food. Then we could shop at WalMart and purchase clothes and other crap made by slave labor in 3rd world countries while we hired someone to do all our home repairs, mow our lawns and change the oil in the car.
Corporate America has totally taken over our lives. From feeding our kids junk food while they are captives in school (with tax payer dollars), pushing small farms out of business (while the corporate farms get huge tax payer subsides), enacting No Child Left Behind (tax payers again fund these highly profitable tests that are mandated), privatizing schools and prisons, etc. It’s all about profit, payoffs, kickbacks and lobbyists buying politicians to vote against the people’s best interest. People with money and power like privatizing their profits while socializing their losses (Wall Street). We are all pawns and the next thing they want to get their hands on is the pot of tax dollars called Social Security and as a bonus Medicare will be nice too.
We are a 3rd world nation, we just don’t know it yet. People are in denial. Time to wake up and pay attention before a handful of uber wealthy take over the schools completely (see what’s happening in Michigan). You think we get little say in school lunches now, wait until there are no public schools because they have all been sold off and are run by corporations for a profit.
No it’s not just the schools and the school food programs that are the only problems in the USA, but it’s a darned good that Jamie Oliver is attempting to make a stab at improving this one small area. I appreciate all of his effort. Our kids and grandchildren deserve better than we have been giving them.
Mike McGalliard says
I’ll admit the v-neck/blazer combo is in bad taste and since the show my wife has permanently banned it from my collection. But point of correction- West Adams isn’t a charter school. Its a regular district school that my organization operates on a performance contract.
I can’t comment on the storylines at Patras and elsewhere, but I can tell you that the storyline at West Adams is the real deal. In fact we micromanaged the production and even the editing to ensure honest portrayal, and that the children were always empowered participants.
Why we did it? Because 42% of our 15 year old girls are obese. Schools are by no means the only problem here. But schools can fix this.
And PS- I like how studied my studied- casual look is by the author. Stay-tuned to episode 6 and you’ll see my glasses change!
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Mike:
First of all, welcome to The Lunch Tray and let me humbly apologize for my unforgivable snark about your wardrobe. 🙂 I can see you’ve taken it like a good sport, and with no apparent hard feelings, for which I’m grateful.
I’m actually really glad you’re here because for those of us watching Food Revolution, it’s often hard to tell where and to what extent there’s manipulation of the viewer for the sake of heightening the drama (a given for all reality shows). I’m a school food blogger who is deeply sympathetic to parents and students who rely on school food, but from involvement in school food reform my own district and in talking with others who are knowledgable in the area, I”m also sympathetic to school districts operating under the National School Lunch Program. I feel that in Jamie’s show, schools/districts sometimes take an unfair rap for problems inherent in the program.
In the particular instance I cited in my review, was it your impression that LAUSD revoked Jamie’s permits due to the social studies class that caused the students to get emotional? Because that’s exactly what the show led us all to believe, and I find it hard to swallow. It seems to me that LAUSD was opposed to Jamie’s filming from day one because it feared being embarrassed, as Huntington, WVA was embarrassed, in ways that were sometimes fair and sometimes quite unfair.
Any insight you can share would be most appreciated, and thank you again for stopping by TLT.
– Bettina
PS: And thanks for the clarification re: West Adams’s status – it was never clear to me from the show its precise relationship to LAUSD.
Mike McGalliard says
Bettina – I didn’t see the narrative to imply that Jamie’s permits were revoked because of that Social Studies class, just coincidental timing. Though I can understand how you see it that way. The permits were suddenly revoked in a frenzy of confusion – which the show does capture pretty well. We were all shocked because filming had been moving along in good faith, and the Supt had full knowledge of what was being filmed. We supplied him with story lines, lesson plans, exact film locations all well in advance. So it was disheartening, and we felt “played” to suddenly have the permits revoked without warning right in the middle of some great educational moments.
The social studies class was moving. When i heard that students were in tears, we quickly visited the class to ask if they ‘understood’ what it meant to show such emotion on camera, that they would be on ABC, etc. They confirmed they were proud of the moment and even brought Jamie back to read him letters about the experience. It is very, very moving and will show up on the next episode.
And from what I hear today, flavored milk is officially banned by LAUSD now.
Jen says
I really want the recipe the teenage boys made with the chicken & tomato sauce. Do you know where I could find it?
Bettina Elias Siegel says
I checked the Food Rev’s website (which does have great recipes) but couldn’t find that particular one. Wish I could help!
Jen says
thanks…i’ve checked there, too. so frustrating! that recipe looked soooo tasty!! 🙂
Lola says
I can’t understand why some of you are critisizing Oliver, Barret kids aren’t fat, but the unhealthy food they’re eating will destroy their health. How many thin people have heart problems?
I know a lot of apparently healthy thin women usually eating fast food meals having problems with their cholesterol and consequently their hearts.
Jamie is trying to do something good and important for your kids, just thank him and help him and your kids, don’t do the “english man go back to your country, you’re not american so do your business elsewhere” thing.