Some dweeb nobody knows whines about food in America

[whatthebutlersaw]

I have started, and scrapped, about ten responses to this thread now, but I keep losing the will to live.

What I take umbrage with is the notion that kids who are served good and nutritious food in school would only eat it because there is nothing else and not by choice.

Firstly - I don't see where the choice is given the opposite situation: where schools provide only crap food and vending machines full of Snickers, crisps and sodas.

Secondly - The kids have to be exposed to good food to actually make a choice.
Thirdly - As a kid I shared pre-school class with, among others, three children, who given their own rule ate really weird stuff: one of them would eat only sugar lumps stolen from the bowl in the staff break room (even eschewing the staff bikkies), one ate the brown end of matches stolen from home and smuggled into school for surreptitious snacking (it's a blessing she wasn't prone to starting fires) and quite a vast minority of my classmates ate their own boogers. I, myself, was partial to throat sweets and would prefer a bag of Dr Dryel's or Emser to dinner any time, despite the fact that something in them frequently gave me the runs.

Somehow, this has not left me with the impression that children should be left to govern their own food intake.

As I said before, sweets were banned on the premises all through my school years up until upper secondary and this had no adverse effect on us. In fact it provided less opportunities for bribing, exclusion and general taunting. The rule included the school bus. Teachers who found you with sweets would confiscate them and hand them back at the end of the day - but if the school bus driver caught you with sweets, you never saw them again.

This completely failed to scar us in any way whatsoever.

As trivia, I can say that our entire town (although I hail from an outside village) - which for Swedish circumstances was medium sized ca. 100.000pop - did not get a McDonald's until I was grown up and moved away. BK, Pizza Hut etc gave up on trying to establish a presence, since the market was considered saturated with McD and one outlet of a local small-chain franchise. (Not even found in all of Sweden, a northern business) A few years later, McD gave up and shut their franchise. There just wasn't enough business.

This probably does not have anything to do with any non-crap eating habits fostered by no-sweets policies etc, but the fact that a low end decent restaurant with good food will cost you about as much as Mikkey D. Also, the local had raised people's taste expectations and it was general consensus that McD didn't taste very good compared to the local. They established themselves to late to win hearts and minds and people already had an expectation what a burger meal is supposed to taste like. Thing is, the local chain cost almost twice what McD took, but people reasoned that they would rather eat fewer, and better tasting, burgers. So basically, we were all happy to eat crap, just not as crappy tasting crap as the major franchise provided.

People who moved from bigger cities to my old town who had been raised to expect burgers to taste McD, on the other hand were divided in two camps. Those who did not see the greatness of (the local chain) because they were used to McD and expected a burger to be like that - and those who said: "Goddamn, I can't believe burgers could actually be good"

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

wtbs, not to ignore the rest of the content in your post but, about McDonald's - everyone in America knows what they're getting there. Reasonable prices, speed and convenience. We all know of other national, regional and local chains as well as mom and pop burger joints and eat there depending on circumstance. And virtually every American has had the best burger possible, one from a backyard grill or perhaps at a picnick.

 

[Matthew Best]

Good news for Jamie Oliver:


Jamie Oliver's school dinners shown to have improved academic results

Absences down after chef changed junk food menu - a result which is a boost for celebrity as he struggles for US support

Today an audience of prestigious economists was told that the healthier school dinners introduced by the celebrity chef had not only significantly improved pupils' test results, but also cut the number of days they were off sick.

Oliver described the research results as "fantastic". "It's the first time a proper study has been done into the positive effects of the campaign and it strongly suggests we were right all along," he said.

"Even while doing the programme, we could see the benefits to children's health and teachers. We could see that asthmatic kids weren't having to use the school inhalers so often, for example.

"We could see that it made them calmer and therefore able to learn."

 

[Fishstick]

Honestly, with the menu they were serving, I'm not surprised there was an improvement:

Burgers and chips

Sausage rolls

Fish fingers

Drumstick-shaped turkey nuggets

Chicken nuggets (pictured)

Imagine eating hamburgers, sausage or nuggets only 5 days a week. Eurgh.

 

[Uncle Otto]

I agree with Checkmite's sentiment that people of the US are strongly against tax raises, I think SkeptiChick is correct that 10-13% seems a bit off. I thought personal taxes averaged around 25-30% for the US. Can you provide a source?

A lot of people have a marginal tax rate of 25-35%, but that's not what you actually pay expressed as a percentage of your gross income. My "effective" tax rate is 13.4%--------now that takes into account only the Federal income tax. Everyone pays lots of other taxes here. I don't know how taxes are structured in the U.K., but here you would have to specify just which specific taxes you are talking about. It can vary widely from one place to another in the U.S.

But I'll have to agree with Checkmite on this------getting a school millage passed in a lot of places here is like pulling teeth from an alligator. Sometimes. I've seen millages get shot down for police and fire services, even when badly needed. The prevailing attitude here is that they want a lot of public services, but want someone else to pay for them.

Oliver isn't the first well known persona to sound the alarm about the food in our nation's schools. But there is also a directly related matter------physical exercise. A lot of districts have cut back or eliminated phys-ed classes for budgetary reasons. Richard Simmons can be a little over the top sometimes, but in 2008 he testified before Congress about this problem. As an obese kid himself, when he was 23 years old he hit 268 lbs! They guy is only 5'7" I think, and he has a small frame.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3g6s7NTnDE

 

[332nd]

Ok. I watched Oliver's show about changing how we think about food in America today...

Why is he wrong?

 

[HawaiiBigSis]

Ok. I watched Oliver's show about changing how we think about food in America today...

Why is he wrong?

Yeah, I don't get it either, except that it requires that the money for food be allocated differently than it is today. I can see why certain stakeholders would object, but I can't see why the parents and/or other beneficiaries of the system are complaining.

 

[dakotajudo]

My issue is that "locally grown" is just one of those buzz catch phrases that sounds good but is essentially meaningless. It's impossible from a practical point of view out here because 95%+ of the farms in California are now owned by huge corporations that would laugh at anyone trying to make small orders for some school or local farmers market.

Are you quite sure about this?

According to the 2007 USDA agricultural census, for example, there are 2300 tomato farms in California. 1800 are open-air tomato farms; 500 are tomatoes for processing. Of the open air farms, less than 600 are larger than 250 acres; a comparable number are less than 10 acre farms.

You should be able to find local grown, if you try.

 

[332nd]

Yeah, I don't get it either, except that it requires that the money for food be allocated differently than it is today. I can see why certain stakeholders would object, but I can't see why the parents and/or other beneficiaries of the system are complaining.

Well, it seems that one of his biggest critics will be on the show next week, it'll be interesting to see what he says.

 

[HawaiiBigSis]

Well, it seems that one of his biggest critics will be on the show next week, it'll be interesting to see what he says.

The DJ guy? Admittedly, all I know of him is the snippets they've shown, but he seems like a blowhard to me. It'll be interesting to see if he has anything substantive to say other than "It's the way we've always done it. If it was good enough for my grandparents, it's good enough for me."

 

[Checkmite]

Ok. I watched Oliver's show about changing how we think about food in America today...

Why is he wrong?

It has nothing to do with anything he says being wrong, in and of itself. My own objection is more along the lines of this guy devoting an entire show to stating what most Americans already know (and by and large don't care about) while thinking he's actually bringing something new and mind-blowing to the table - and people buying the bluster.

 

[dudalb]

I think it is a case .once again, of "It's not what you say, buy how you say it, that makes or breaks a case".
Oliver did come off like the Superior Brit lecturing the ignorant Americans. That is naturally going to irritate people.

 

[332nd]

It has nothing to do with anything he says being wrong, in and of itself. My own objection is more along the lines of this guy devoting an entire show to stating what most Americans already know (and by and large don't care about) while thinking he's actually bringing something new and mind-blowing to the table - and people buying the bluster.

I really didn't get that as the main point from the episode I saw. In fact, I'd say that point was residual. The main point I took was this can actually taste good, here's how.

Having said that, it was only one show so my view may change.

I think it is a case .once again, of "It's not what you say, buy how you say it, that makes or breaks a case".
Oliver did come off like the Superior Brit lecturing the ignorant Americans. That is naturally going to irritate people.

True. I can't help but wonder how much of it is the accent... Then I'm an actor so I wonder about really weird things.

 

[HawaiiBigSis]

True. I can't help but wonder how much of it is the accent... Then I'm an actor so I wonder about really weird things.

I was hoping that some of his superiority attitude was just bad editing on the part of the producers. His approach to the lunch ladies in the first two hours was really heavy-handed, and I don't blame them one bit for being pissed off at him.

However, I have to believe that he's a little more realistic than he appeared to be. But his "this always works" experiment with the children, where they were willing to eat the chicken nuggets made out of what he had clearly demonstrated to be inedible parts, was very funny. And his reaction of "WTF?" was even funnier.

I'm not really sure people do understand how what the kids get fed in school is detrimental. And, the point has been made that one meal a day of super-processed chicken nuggets isn't horrible, it's that it's the same thing they eat at home. So people don't appear to be getting it.

 

[whatthebutlersaw]

I'm not surprised the kids happily ate demonstrably inedible stuff. Humans are willing to eat practically anything. It's us and wasps. During famines in Scandinavia people told of finding entire households on distant farms, starved to death, with clear signs of having tried to eat grass.

I myself don't really care what's in a hot dog or a pork pie as long as it tastes nice. But I am a grown up and have to take the consequences of my own actions. I sometimes eat strawberry shoe-laces for dinner. If I gave a child nothing but that, it would be a clear case of neglect. The ingredients in the infamous Turkey Twizzlers are about as nutritious as my strawberry shoelaces. (Sometimes Basset's Wine Gums)

The problem is that for some reason people equate "good for you" with "palate defiling" and the overall message that Jamie Oliver has is that it doesn't have to be that way. Nobody is asking anyone to step away from the pizza slices and grab a tofu casserole or raw beetroot. It can just as well be a nice, fresh roast chicken.

There is nothing wrong with providing alternatives.

Dylan Moran jokes about how he grew up on Angel Delight and that they didn't get food in the house that wasn't neon. That, albeit a hyperbole for comic effect, the other end of the spectrum.

 

[Edx]

oops double post

 

[Edx]

It has nothing to do with anything he says being wrong, in and of itself. My own objection is more along the lines of this guy devoting an entire show to stating what most Americans already know (and by and large don't care about) while thinking he's actually bringing something new and mind-blowing to the table - and people buying the bluster.

Did you watch the show? If people already know this stuff then why were all their objections not based around the monetary issues involved? Rather what actually happened is that you had a wave if stubborn ignorance from pretty much everyone that resisted him. Saying fries counted as vegetables, not seeing anything wrong with serving pizza for breakfast, not seeing anything wrong with a chicken dipper containing dozens of unknown ingredients only one of them being "chicken", having him find extra bread because the rules said he needed to feed them more and no one saying they agreed it was pointless, kids that dont know what a potato is etc

On the first day he served up his menu alongside theirs, should it be surprising that kids chose the bad food they already know? The cafeteria ladies acted like it was a win for them, yea good one the kids chose the stuff that's gonna kill them good job. What I didnt understand was why they even let him in their school if they all think there's no problem which they said there wasnt over and over again. How you can think people know to eat healthy when they are the age of those kids, they eat whatever people tell them to eat. You feed them crap for breakfast lunch and dinner thats what they're gonna eat, apparently you think that if you show a kid brought up this way a pizza vs a real chicken leg and they choose the pizza every time that this is a real choice - IT ISNT. At that age you TRAIN THEM to act a certain way and then its much harder to change in the long run. That's the whole point about getting them learning about this stuff when they are young as currently they are learning a way to eat that is going to leave them unhealthy, diseased prone, unhappy and likely a shorter life. We know the US has a problem, this is how you fix it. It may cost a marginal amount of money to do, but even if it cost more than that it would make sense. With more healthy citizens they can be more productive and contribute more, if they are dead or have to sponge off the system through being sick then this is going to cost the government much more.

But back to the point, people are fat and dying of malnutrition and yet you act as if you are delusional enough to think that somehow they already know all this? Nonsense, they dont know a damn thing. As someone else posted a few pages back, even many adults think that because they are thin they can eat whatever they want. Thats just the start of how poorly people understand nutrition. They see low fat on products, so what? Its probably got lots of sugar in it. People see low sugar, so what? Its probably got loads of fat in it. Stuff like Fruit Loops that actually advertises itself as having healthy wholegrains to appear to be better than it actually is. Think about Bran Flakes, sounds and looks pretty healthy but actually contains tons of sugar. Many people think lettuce in their McDonalds burgers are good, a shocking stupid thing to think, but then consider that its iceberg which has practically no nutritional value whatsoever and that they think the fries aren't too bad because its potato. People evidently dont know this stuff at all you are completely wrong.

 

[Checkmite]

Did you watch the show? If people already know this stuff then why were all their objections not based around the monetary issues involved? Rather what actually happened is that you had a wave if stubborn ignorance from pretty much everyone that resisted him. Saying fries counted as vegetables, not seeing anything wrong with serving pizza for breakfast, not seeing anything wrong with a chicken dipper containing dozens of unknown ingredients only one of them being "chicken", having him find extra bread because the rules said he needed to feed them more and no one saying they agreed it was pointless, kids that dont know what a potato is etc

On the first day he served up his menu alongside theirs, should it be surprising that kids chose the bad food they already know? The cafeteria ladies acted like it was a win for them, yea good one the kids chose the stuff that's gonna kill them good job. What I didnt understand was why they even let him in their school if they all think there's no problem which they said there wasnt over and over again. How you can think people know to eat healthy when they are the age of those kids, they eat whatever people tell them to eat. You feed them crap for breakfast lunch and dinner thats what they're gonna eat, apparently you think that if you show a kid brought up this way a pizza vs a real chicken leg and they choose the pizza every time that this is a real choice - IT ISNT. At that age you TRAIN THEM to act a certain way and then its much harder to change in the long run. That's the whole point about getting them learning about this stuff when they are young as currently they are learning a way to eat that is going to leave them unhealthy, diseased prone, unhappy and likely a shorter life. We know the US has a problem, this is how you fix it. It may cost a marginal amount of money to do, but even if it cost more than that it would make sense. With more healthy citizens they can be more productive and contribute more, if they are dead or have to sponge off the system through being sick then this is going to cost the government much more.

But back to the point, people are fat and dying of malnutrition and yet you act as if you are delusional enough to think that somehow they already know all this? Nonsense, they dont know a damn thing. As someone else posted a few pages back, even many adults think that because they are thin they can eat whatever they want. Thats just the start of how poorly people understand nutrition. They see low fat on products, so what? Its probably got lots of sugar in it. People see low sugar, so what? Its probably got loads of fat in it. Stuff like Fruit Loops that actually advertises itself as having healthy wholegrains to appear to be better than it actually is. Think about Bran Flakes, sounds and looks pretty healthy but actually contains tons of sugar. Many people think lettuce in their McDonalds burgers are good, a shocking stupid thing to think, but then consider that its iceberg which has practically no nutritional value whatsoever and that they think the fries aren't too bad because its potato. People evidently dont know this stuff at all you are completely wrong.

Please try to bear in mind that you're dealing with a television show with a vested interest in showing the protagonist to be correct.

Consider an episode of Penn & Teller's "BullSh*t" as an extreme example of the same thing. For the "pro-claim" side, do they ever interview intelligent well-spoken individuals who offer anything more than nonsensical gibberish in support of whatever claim P&T are debunking in that episode? No. The point of the show is that the claim of the week is stupid/crazy/uninformed, and they interview people who best demonstrate those qualities in order to make the point to the viewer.

That's what it's like on this guy's show. Kids who dislike the "proper" food despite being corrected or appear halfway educated on the subject of nutrition, along with adults who raise objections with any more intelligence than "ain't french fries veg'tbles too?", are left on the cutting room floor (if they're interviewed at all) in favor of the man who thinks pizza for breakfast is a wonderful idea. Exercise a modicum of critical thinking and ask yourself how many kids you think there are that really don't know what a potato is.

In short: Perhaps the reason all the objections you've seen on the show don't involve money is because those objections can be neatly countered on camera in-the-moment, while the money-involved ones can't.

 

[Edx]

Please try to bear in mind that you're dealing with a television show with a vested interest in showing the protagonist to be correct.

They didnt put words in peoples mouths, they said what they said. Again, did you actually watch the program? Because it seems like you couldn't possibly have.

Consider an episode of Penn & Teller's "BullSh*t" as an extreme example of the same thing. For the "pro-claim" side, do they ever interview intelligent well-spoken individuals who offer anything more than nonsensical gibberish in support of whatever claim P&T are debunking in that episode? No. The point of the show is that the claim of the week is stupid/crazy/uninformed, and they interview people who best demonstrate those qualities in order to make the point to the viewer.

Why does it matter in this case? The only valid resistance to Jamie should be the cost and extra man power, everything else should be agreed to, but that is not what you saw. Now you could say they cut all the "real" criticisms out, but even if they did all the stupid crap he got from them was still real and abundant

That's what it's like on this guy's show. Kids who dislike the "proper" food despite being corrected or appear halfway educated on the subject of nutrition, along with adults who raise objections with any more intelligence than "ain't french fries veg'tbles too?", are left on the cutting room floor (if they're interviewed at all) in favor of the man who thinks pizza for breakfast is a wonderful idea.

And who might they be? We have the lunch ladies, we have the other officials, we have the radio host we have the newspaper article that make him look bad. Just what reasonable person or opinion do you think they left out? And what do you mean... "Kids who dislike the "proper" food despite being corrected or appear halfway educated on the subject of nutrition" ... A kid who chooses crap food everytime will be fat and unhealthy, thats the point. If they know something about nutrition, which I guarantee they wouldnt, then they have a mental issue where they know its bad to keep eating hamburgers and fries and pizzas and fried chicken but cant stop themselves. A kid does not make a CHOICE, they are being given the bad food. You need to REtrain away all the bad training they have already been given. What do you think we should do? Continue to allow the problem to continue or maybe try something to stop it? What other ideas do you have?

Exercise a modicum of critical thinking and ask yourself how many kids you think there are that really don't know what a potato is.

Ask yourself whether a town full of obese malnourished diseased prone people can really know all that much about nutrition. Ask yourself if the kids in that primary school really have the capacity to make a genuine choice in what they are eating and should be allowed to choose the crap and that we have to feed them that because thats what they are asking for. You dont keep feeding a child sweets all day just because they ask for it.... no wait... thats exactly the kind of thing thats been happening.

In short: Perhaps the reason all the objections you've seen on the show don't involve money is because those objections can be neatly countered on camera in-the-moment, while the money-involved ones can't.

Nonsense, obviously since the issue of money was massive in the UK too which was already explained to you. We all know it will cost some more money (but not that much, which was proved in the UK). My issue is not that they were skeptical of Jamie because of money or how he would get the kids to eat, it its that they didnt seem to see anything wrong with how they had been feeding their kids. Are you suggesting that they DIDN'T really say that the fake chicken meat with tons of additives and chemicals was fine? TV editing can do a lot, but they cant do THAT much. And if they really were THAT crafty, why has none of them said that they had been so unfairly represented? I havent seen past episode 1 but from reviews he does get through to them and they do start to understand, but the fact remains that this is how they were at the start. In the UK they weren't as bad as these people, but was still a lot of resistance there too so maybe you should go watch the UK version if you imagine it was somehow completely different and a cakewalk compared.

Also, you are simply completely wrong that people do generally understand nutrition, they don't. The extent most people know is eat vegetables, stay away from fatty and overly sugary foods like ice cream or fast food. Most people try to loose weight rather than eat healthy, ever noticed that? People think that if they are thin, they can eat whatever they like. Wrong! As I said, people see wholegrain goodness or high in fibre, or low in fat, low in sugar etc and automatically think the food must be good. And you seem to think its a minority opinion that fries equal a vegetable, 'fraid not. I've met loads of people, even my own father who thought white potatoes count as a vegetable who didnt know that iceberg lettuce has virtually no nutritional value. People really dont know how to eat, if they did we wouldnt have a problem in the first place, unless you're saying everyone has a mental illness and cant stop themselves shovelling it into their mouths. There's something wrong somewhere, if you're saying it isn't knowledge then you must be saying its something else, unless somehow you deny there is a problem to begin with.

To me your arguments remind me of someone saying that they have tried being on all kinds of diets, they've tried everything but just cant stop putting on weight they'll say. Yet when you see what they eat it makes absolutely perfect sense. They really dont understand anything about this and anyone that is fat who is eating the right things and exercising has a different health problem, which seems to apply to only a small fraction of cases. Everyone else is fat and unhealthy because of it because of their diet and exercise.

The system is broken, it needs to be fixed.