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James Oliver and His American Dream

  • Marlon Mata
  • November 9, 2010
Jamie Oliver on Food Revolution

Come on, let’s give the guy credit for what he’s done. After all, it’s no joke coming all the way from Britain just to preach his principles of healthy eating. The only problem is this: no one is buying his idea.

What’s wrong about his idea of healthy eating? Truthfully, none. The only problem is that his idea isn’t getting across the Americans. Yes, he wants children to eat healthy, but his food tasted so bad that most of the students of Central City Elementary dropped out of his feeding program. So what happened?

Well, it’s probably Americans don’t really want to be lectured on what to eat, especially by someone from Britain. We’d rather do things our way and learn from it. Now Oliver comes along with his ideals of healthy eating, with his signature rants and his bean pod costumes. I’m sure he wants to make kids comfortable eating vegetables, but all the reaction he got seems to be that of distaste.

Aside from that, his program forces the school’s budget allocation for food to go over. That’s not good news, especially for a school that relies on federal funding. There are other costs in school that he had also gone over budget with. What’s worse, his “Food Revolution”menu doesn’t meet nutritional guidelines. That’s why it comes as no surprise if the Los Angeles Unified School District said that their grateful for his help, but it would be better if he had just left them alone. That sure hurt the feelings of the well-meaning chef.

But frankly, he could have done better. What made his program go flunk was presentation. Who wants to eat soybean-tacos, then wash them down with some sort of organic chocolate milk, no sugar at that? Definitely not this author. And besides, his gimmick borders more on the lunacy, instead of being informative. If only he had made it more professional, then it might have made the difference. Besides, his ranting and overly energetic display on preparing the dishes would have definitely made a good number of his young audience react badly. Kids aren’t stupid. They’re smart enough to know if they’re being egged on by some foreigner.

There many ways to kill a cat, so to speak. There are a lot of natural flavor enhancers that would make the meals more palatable for kids. He should have put in mind that he’s not in Britain. American tastes are very different from his place, so there’s bound to be contention with his dishes.

Anyway, knowing Oliver, he’ll just go on to his next project. Hope he succeeds this time. Americans can be a sensitive lot, so he’s got to be careful on what he’s planning to do next. He’s the man with the plan, so he should do better.

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