Some dweeb nobody knows whines about food in America

[The Fallen Serpent]

If you folks think force-feeding kids healthy foods is justified by the health benefits - well that's fine, but say so, and seriously cut it out with all this "educating kids and helping them make better decisions about nutrition" crap because that's not what's happening at all.

Okay fine. Let me put this bluntly. I am not advocating removing parental choice nor am I advocating banning paperbag lunches. The school should not follow the children around after school nagging them about after school meal choices. However, if a child is going to eat food provided from the school the school should forcible only give healthy choices. This is not about what the children decide, but what the parents decide. If the parents want to allow their children to eat poor and unhealthy, that is fine. The school should not enable that.

 

[GreyICE]

Oh come on, nutrition labels are perfect? No. There's many games manufacturers play.

For instance, serving size. A 'serving size' is a variable quantity only loosely constrained by the FDA. A can of soda may have 1, 2, or 3 servings in it, depending on the size and manufacturer. This makes comparison difficult for people who can't do math and hold numbers in their head.

Then there's the fact 1 in 4 is just flat wrong:
http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/...o-know-what-youre-eating-theres-a-1-in-4-cha/

That makes life easier.

So overall, suggesting they're perfect is significantly off-base (I haven't even gone into issues like the 'sugar free' breath mints made out of virtually pure sugar).

 

[MG1962]

I don't know how long ago you were at school, but in the 90's in high school, the food pyramid and nutrition was taught in Health class, and it was compulsory to take a health class and a gym class at least once each year.

Even now, the US government has a website - an entire very good and very large website, dedicated to nothing whatsoever except teaching people how to eat properly.

I don't see how Americans could possibly be called uneducated about food - or, at the very least, those who "aren't properly educated" are thus by choice.

Oliver lead the campaign in England, not with educating, but changing the food offered at schools. American kids are light years ahead of a lot of the English kids that were in the program. Some would not even eat spaghetti

His inspiration came from the Italian school system, where even the spaghetti noodles are made fresh on site, and there is virtually no reliance on processed food at all

 

[Darat]

I object to the way you're portraying this. Using phrases like "changing minds", "changing habits", and "exposed to an alternative" suggests that such things are happening voluntarily on the part of children. That's incredibly misleading. Taking away "unhealthy choices" in fact leaves no alternatives and forces any changes that take place - which in my estimation short-circuits any claim at "accomplishment". It's telling a kid you're not driving her to school anymore and patting yourself for helping her "choose a healthier lifestyle" when you see her walking to school. She didn't choose anything.

If you folks think force-feeding kids healthy foods is justified by the health benefits - well that's fine, but say so, and seriously cut it out with all this "educating kids and helping them make better decisions about nutrition" crap because that's not what's happening at all.

Your argument would be as equally valid about most aspects of a child's education.

Personally I believe it is "justified" because of how humans actually learn to like different foods, most foods are an "acquired taste", if you do not expose young children to different foods you are, in the long term, reducing their ability to choose for themselves what they want to eat when they get older.

(I believe there are evolutionary based theories to account for why we have to "acquire" a taste for a new food: something along the lines of ensuring only small amounts of a potentially new food source are tried first of all in case it runs out to be toxic.)

 

[Checkmite]

Alot of my female friends sorta brag about not being able to cook a simple meal. I do not know when this type of atitude became vogue.

I don't want to hijack the thread with another different discussion, but I will say that not long ago in the US, women were expected to be experts at cooking, sewing, and cleaning, and pretty much nothing else. I suspect that not enough time between that era and now has gone by for women to no longer feel that not being a homemaker is "breaking the mold", as it were.

 

[Michael Redman]

The fact that obesity rates in the US are not rising should indicate that the population is not overwhelmingly ignorant of the problem or its solution.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/health/14obese.html

If Oliver wants to help improve the situation, more power to him. But if he puts his efforts into basic awareness and "starting a movement", I don't think he's going to have any noticable impact. Hopefully he educated himself on what is actually going on in American food culture right now.

 

[Checkmite]

Personally I believe it is "justified" because of how humans actually learn to like different foods, most foods are an "acquired taste", if you do not expose young children to different foods you are, in the long term, reducing their ability to choose for themselves what they want to eat when they get older.

That is a pretense; in school, children would not be exposed at all to foods that people like Oliver disapprove of. I suppose that's okay, though, because those foods are "bad for you".

Anyone want to compare life expectancies between today and the time before all that horrible processed and fast food?

 

[richardm]

No, I wouldn't. Kids still have to eat.

The fact that the phrase "the takeup of school dinners has increased" was used should imply to you that it is not a choice of eating the meals the school provides or going hungry.

The kids still have the option of not taking up school dinners. Despite that, and despite a number of early setbacks, there are more children now choosing to take up the school dinners than there was before, and the school dinners they're choosing are healthier than they used to be.

Why is this such a problem?

That is a pretense; in school, children would not be exposed at all to foods that people like Oliver disapprove of. I suppose that's okay, though, because those foods are "bad for you".

So is it your position that these foods - by which I assume you're talking about fatty, sugary foods - are not bad for you? I don't mean every now and then as a treat, because most people agree they're fine when used like that. But when eaten every day as a staple? They're not bad for you?

You're either trolling or that much-vaunted American system of food education has failed you badly.

Furthermore, are you suggesting that American schools don't serve up fatty, sugary foods as school meals? Because I frankly find that hard to credit.

 

[Darat]

That is a pretense; in school, children would not be exposed at all to foods that people like Oliver disapprove of. I suppose that's okay, though, because those foods are "bad for you".

Simply not true. For example in the menus he helped create in the UK chips were still on the menu, it is just that they were no longer the only "veg" option and not available every single day.

 

[WildCat]

Yet Jamie Oliver (and I find his TV persona bloody annoying) has had a dramatic effect on the diet of UK children, just today a report showed that 15% more of primary school kids are having vegetables with their school dinners. He spear-headed that change in school dinners in the UK.

"74% of pupils are now taking servings of vegetables and salad with their lunch, compared with 59% in 2005. On average, children in 2009 took more than two of their ‘5-a-day' as part of their school lunch, eating an average of 1.6 portions of fruit and vegetables."

To be pedantic, it's actually a 25% increase.

 

[Cavemonster]

That is a pretense; in school, children would not be exposed at all to foods that people like Oliver disapprove of. I suppose that's okay, though, because those foods are "bad for you".

Frankly, I'm not worried, I'm sure most of these kids will somehow be exposed to hamburgers, pizza and fries.

Anyone want to compare life expectancies between today and the time before all that horrible processed and fast food?

So you want to completely discount all medical advances since the 60s?
You want to discount the general rise in nutritional knowledge?
There may be a few confounding factors there.

 

[Ysidro]

Guys, stop arguing. Checkmite is right. There's no point in helping Americans eat healthy. We're just fat slobs.

 

[Checkmite]

The fact that the phrase "the takeup of school dinners has increased" was used should imply to you that it is not a choice of eating the meals the school provides or going hungry.

The kids still have the option of not taking up school dinners. Despite that, and despite a number of early setbacks, there are more children now choosing to take up the school dinners than there was before, and the school dinners they're choosing are healthier than they used to be.

Why is this such a problem?

Never said it was a problem; I just said I'm not convinced it's some great accomplishment.

So is it your position that these foods - by which I assume you're talking about fatty, sugary foods - are not bad for you? I don't mean every now and then as a treat, because most people agree they're fine when used like that. But when eaten every day as a staple? They're not bad for you?

That is not my position, no. That I don't think hamburgers or pizza slices should be banned from school lunches is not at all the same as thinking they should be "eaten every day as a staple".

 

[Darat]

...snip...

Anyone want to compare life expectancies between today and the time before all that horrible processed and fast food?

I believe that there are concerns that the increase of life expectancy my mother's generation has experienced (she was born during WWII so was raised until her teen years on a strictly rationed diet) is not going to be seen in my generation. (My generation, in the the UK at least, was the first that can be said to have been brought up when there were widely available "processed" and "fast" food).

"Processed" and "fast" food is a very recent change to our diet, we have still to see what effect (if any of course) it will have on such things as life expectancy.

 

[Checkmite]

Frankly, I'm not worried, I'm sure most of these kids will somehow be exposed to hamburgers, pizza and fries.

But we can't make the same blithe assumption that kids will be exposed to salads, rice, and diced pears outside of school?

So you want to completely discount all medical advances since the 60s?

Hey, if people can discount the fact that kids have no choice but to eat healthy foods when claiming that their new lunch program has "changed kids' eating habits", I don't see why I can't...

You want to discount the general rise in nutritional knowledge?

HOLD IT!!!! What did you just say? Hold on, I need to read that again:

You want to discount the general rise in nutritional knowledge?

Wow, you have a point. Nutritional knowledge really has gone up in recent years, hasn't it?

 

[drkitten]

If you folks think force-feeding kids healthy foods is justified by the health benefits - well that's fine, but say so, and seriously cut it out with all this "educating kids and helping them make better decisions about nutrition" crap because that's not what's happening at all.

No, that's exactly what's happening.

How do you think children -- people in general -- learn to like and eat food? Not by being "persuaded" into it, but by trying it. If the deep, pure, wisdom of childhood has informed you that spinach is icky, then you won't eat spinach if there's an alternative. If you give most children a choice between fries and spinach, they'll eat the fries, which is terrible, and they won't even taste the spinach.

If you only offer them the spinach, they'll more or less have to eat it, and a number of them will find out that they like spinach.

This is especially true if the spinach actually tastes good, which is more likely to be the case if it's both fresh (local helps here) and well-prepared. Simply boiling canned spinach until it surrenders isn't very good -- as a chef, Mr. Oliver knows a lot of interesting and fairly cheap things that can be done easily to preserve and enhance the flavor and texture.

Once the kids learn (forcibly) that spinach doesn't suck, they'll be more likely to eat it elsewhere. I.e. they're learning better eating habits, which is healthier.

I really don't see what the problem is except for the problem that a foreign expert knows more than some of the rather defensively provincial posters in this thread.

... who resent it.

 

[WildCat]

This makes comparison difficult for people who can't do math and hold numbers in their head.

What makes you think the same schools which couldn't teach these people 3rd-grade math can teach them about proper nutrition?

 

[The Painter]

So this guy Jamie Oliver says that a Twinkie will kill me as he rides off on a motorcycle. Hmm. I wonder which is more unhealthy, a motorcycle or a Twinkie? It's all about your priorities, isn't it?

 

[Darat]

...snip...

I really don't see what the problem is except for the problem that a foreign expert knows more than some of the rather defensively provincial posters in this thread.

... who resent it.

Perhaps him being a foreigner is part of it but we pretty much had all the same objections raised over here when he first started his campaign.

 

[Darat]

So this guy Jamie Oliver says that a Twinkie will kill me as he rides off on a motorcycle. Hmm. I wonder which is more unhealthy, a motorcycle or a Twinkie? It's all about your priorities, isn't it?

Nope - and have you tried his full English breakfast? All that bacon, black pudding, fried eggs, mushrooms and ketchup - delicious.