Some dweeb nobody knows whines about food in America

[Darth Rotor]

The "Only" is really a strawman IMHO. Nobody said all child should be forced to eat at school, but those that do should get a better diet.

If you can keep it within budget, sure, why not?

So, what percentage of children rely on school for their meals?

DR

 

[Fiona]

It was part of his finding that far too little was allocated to buying food (and I mean really shockingly little) and also that it was not spent wisely. Sourcing locally can mean getting stuff cheaper: it doesn't always because the food pricing structure is a bit strange: but for some things at least you can buy from local people and get it for less because of transport costs and packaging and things like that

 

[Cavemonster]

What the hell does "local" food have to do with healthy food?

A good question, something we're still finding out.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/boosting-health-with-local-food/

One issue is that food produced far away generally falls into two categories, either highly processed food, or produce that has been selected and bred to endure the transit well and still look good on the shelves. Very often this is at the cost of both taste and nutritional value.

The apples, greens and tomatoes you find at your large supermarket from distant factory farms need to be tough and still be attractive after a longer period of time. They also need to have the widest appeal.

Heirloom tomatoes taste better than standard supermarket tomatoes. Because they taste better, kids and adults will likely eat more of them. They're also higher in all the nutrients that make tomatoes worthwhile. And, through my local CSA (community supported agriculture) they're cheaper too.

Big factory farms can't market these tomatoes because they don't survive shipping well and the look and size varies widely. This is just one of a large number of veggies that a local farm can offer but more distant, larger ones can't.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Do explain.

Locally grown fruit tends to be much cheaper than fruit from say, The Netherlands, a big producer of fruit in Europe. This is, of course, obvious.

However, processed crap from somewhere further afield may actually be cheaper than the Dutch fruit because it uses crap ingredients made cheaply for a shoddy product. This means that groups with very tight budgets can afford to buy however many crates of the processed junk to feed to their consumers, in this case children in schools. The dutch fruit may even be too expensive to buy enough of, meaning it isn't really an option.

Local fruit, being cheaper than the dutch fruit, can be more readily bought within a strict budget, making fresh fruit a more widely available thing.

 

[Darat]

What's black pudding?

A sausage like food made from congealed blood and fat.

 

[Joe Random]

<...>

There is a need to educate the people who are cooking food for our kids on how to get them to eat "good" foods. While spinach is cheep and easy food to cook (or ruin), there is a reason most kids think its icky, it's a bitter green. Kid's pallets don't do well with bitters. There is a reason that people "grow into" certain veggies. If the people cooking food for the kids understand how to put a meal together, then getting kids to eat healthier foods becomes easier and not a chore.

In the end, it comes back around to cooking. We know what is healthy and what is not. Many people simply don't know what to do with the healthy stuff.

I was about to post something almost exactly like this. I do 100% of the meal planning, 100% of the cooking, and about 70%-90% of the shopping in my house. I started cooking at an early age because actually I enjoy it (then found soon after that a younger man being able to cook well for an older woman had certain … benefits).

I don’t think the problem is being unaware of how unhealthy certain foods are, but rather being unaware of how good tasting the alternatives can be, and how they aren’t as expensive or difficult to make as is often thought. At least in the group of people I’ve been exposed to they all know that ordering pizza isn’t healthy, but they seem to not know how to prepare a simple meal that tastes great and is far better for you. You don’t need to be a master chef to create a simple red sauce to go with pasta that stretches over several meals at a very low cost, or how to make a fish dish that doesn’t involve a drive to Long John Silvers.

Don’t focus on teaching people about the bad – we’re inundated with that already. Focus on teaching people how much easier, cheaper, and less expensive the alternatives are than most people seem to think.

At least that’s my opinion.

 

[WildCat]

A good question, something we're still finding out.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/boosting-health-with-local-food/

One issue is that food produced far away generally falls into two categories, either highly processed food, or produce that has been selected and bred to endure the transit well and still look good on the shelves. Very often this is at the cost of both taste and nutritional value.

The apples, greens and tomatoes you find at your large supermarket from distant factory farms need to be tough and still be attractive after a longer period of time. They also need to have the widest appeal.

Certainly applies in many cases, but I don't think apples fall in that category. Apples store extremely well naturally, and I'll take a Fuji apple from Washington over a McIntosh from Michigan any day. Mainly because I like Fiji apples better.

Heirloom tomatoes taste better than standard supermarket tomatoes. Because they taste better, kids and adults will likely eat more of them. They're also higher in all the nutrients that make tomatoes worthwhile. And, through my local CSA (community supported agriculture) they're cheaper too.

Agreed, but I grow my own tomatoes.

Big factory farms can't market these tomatoes because they don't survive shipping well and the look and size varies widely. This is just one of a large number of veggies that a local farm can offer but more distant, larger ones can't.

True, but you'll only get locally grown tomatoes here for a few months a year. I suppose there's a few greenhouses growing them for most of the year, but I don't think they grow heirloom tomatoes in the hothouse. And they probbaly wouldn't be cheap either.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

Don’t focus on teaching people about the bad – we’re inundated with that already. Focus on teaching people how much easier, cheaper, and less expensive the alternatives are than most people seem to think.

At least that’s my opinion.

And that has been Jamie Oliver's approach to date.

 

[dafydd]

Only the Brits could blur the line between sausage and pudding...

Dictionary.com
c.1300, "a kind of sausage: the stomach or one of the entrails of a pig, sheep, etc., stuffed with minced meat, suet, seasoning, boiled and kept till needed," perhaps from a W.Gmc. stem *pud- "to swell" (cf. O.E. puduc "a wen," Westphalian dial. puddek "lump, pudding," Low Ger. pudde-wurst "black pudding," Eng. dial. pod "belly," also cf. pudgy). Other possibility is that it is from O.Fr. boudin "sausage," from V.L. *botellinus, from L. botellus "sausage" (change of Fr. b- to Eng. p- presents difficulties, but cf. purse). The modern sense had emerged by 1670, from extension to other foods boiled or steamed in a bag or sack. German pudding, Fr. pouding, Swed. pudding, Ir. putog are from English. Puddinghead "amiable stupid person" is attested from 1851.

 

[The Fallen Serpent]

True, but you'll only get locally grown tomatoes here for a few months a year. I suppose there's a few greenhouses growing them for most of the year, but I don't think they grow heirloom tomatoes in the hothouse. And they probbaly wouldn't be cheap either.

Which is a major part of the local food movement. Avoid eating out of season foods if it possible. Instead of eating tomatoes year round, supplement squash in the later months that squash is available when tomatoes are not, then during those months neither are available use the foreign grown tomatoes. The better crafted local food promotions focus on seasonal based meal decisions rather than attempting a single dietary list that needs apply year round.

 

[Staropeace]

Nothing wrong with a chef trying to educate folks about making better,healthier choices,IMO.

Knowing how to utilize the food you have can save a person alot of money.

I usually follow a rotation menu ....at home and at work.

I get soup stocks from the cheapest bones and pieces of meat. A roast chicken can provide me with several different meals. I throw nothing away.. not even vegetable peelings. Everything can be utilized . In todays tough economic times, it isnt a bad thing to be wise about food.

 

[WildCat]

Locally grown fruit tends to be much cheaper than fruit from say, The Netherlands, a big producer of fruit in Europe. This is, of course, obvious.

However, processed crap from somewhere further afield may actually be cheaper than the Dutch fruit because it uses crap ingredients made cheaply for a shoddy product. This means that groups with very tight budgets can afford to buy however many crates of the processed junk to feed to their consumers, in this case children in schools. The dutch fruit may even be too expensive to buy enough of, meaning it isn't really an option.

Local fruit, being cheaper than the dutch fruit, can be more readily bought within a strict budget, making fresh fruit a more widely available thing.

The only Dutch "fruit" I see here are vegetables... peppers and tomatoes mostly. Usually only see them out of season though, and it is of course more expensive.

And what's wrong with canned vegetables? Vegetables raised for canning are "local" varieties because most canneries are located near where the vegetables are grown. The tomatoes are picked when they're ripe, not when they're green. The cans can be recycled.

 

[Cavemonster]

Agreed, but I grow my own tomatoes.

And that's as local as you can get!

True, but you'll only get locally grown tomatoes here for a few months a year. I suppose there's a few greenhouses growing them for most of the year, but I don't think they grow heirloom tomatoes in the hothouse. And they probbaly wouldn't be cheap either.

Part of eating locally involves eating seasonally, at least to a degree. For most parts of the world, there's always something in season. When tomatoes are in season, local tomatoes are a better choice than shipped in ones. When they aren't, so it goes. You likely will supplement with ingredients from farther away, but I think it's a good goal to try to get a good amount of whatever's locally available in season.

It's very likely to be the best ratio of tasty, nutritious, fresh and cheap. And having your own garden, if you have the time, can often be the pinnacle of all four. A local farmer is the next best thing.

Aside from health issues, there are economic reasons, environmental reasons and social reasons that local food is great, but that's a whole other debate.

 

[WildCat]

And that's as local as you can get!

In my tiny little city back yard I grow tomatoes, peppers, squash, grapes, plums, peaches, and herbs. And because of a combination of the "urban heat island" effect and Lake Michigan keeping my area a bit warmer in the fall my veggie plants live long. I've picked jalapenos as late as mid-December in some years.

Aside from health issues, there are economic reasons, environmental reasons and social reasons that local food is great, but that's a whole other debate.

Maybe, maybe not. Skeptoid had a good article about that.

 

[Cavemonster]

Maybe, maybe not. Skeptoid had a good article about that.

No question, the environmental issues are far from clear.
However, that article only dealt with carbon footprint, which is among many enviromental issues including pesticides, groundwater etc.

And even just from a carbon standpoint, it only addressed the routes of a chain store trying to source from multiple suppliers. Farmer's markets are much more efficient, CSAs even more so.

My CSA makes one trip from the farm into town, the cutomers make one trip a week to pick up their veggies at the site in town, for most of us, pretty much the same distance we would go to get to the supermarket, and a lot of us do it on bikes anyway. During 6 months of the year, we get about 90% of our produce through them.

So my local supply chain is much lower in footprint than shipped in produce. You're right that this doesn't apply to everything that's local. But through farmer's markets or a single supplier, the chain is shorter. This isn't an option for everyone, but for people who live somewhere it's available, it's a very carbon efficient distribution.

The article also concentrates of efficiency over actual carbon output. A very efficient system transporting goods thousands of miles can still be worse than an inefficient system travelling a few dozen miles. He concludes that the final model for one store chain ended up resembling the distribution model for larger shippers, but it was still transporting those goods a shorter distance.

 

[The Fallen Serpent]

Also on canning, I notice local generic brand canned foods are cheaper than the national name brand canned foods. Eating locally may require a degree of food preservation. At times it may be the better choice to purchase the national brand that comes from elsewhere and other times the better choice may be for locally canned brands. Plus there is the added bonus of revenue flowing into local markets.

 

[theprestige]

Spot on. He has played a part in changing eating habits of UK kids. Why can't he do the same in the USA?

I'm sure he can do exaclty the same in the USA. He can also try, and fail.

But help me out here: When you say he "played a part in changing the eating habits of UK kids", do you mean that he made the same recommendations in the UK as he is quoted making in the OP, and that the UK implemented those recommendations?

Because, hey, if UK food companies are now education companies that also sell food and label all their non-Oliver-approved foods as UNHEALTHY, and UK supermarkets all have "food ambassadors", and every UK schoolchild is taught to prepare ten different meals before they graduate, and this really has had an effect on eating habits of UK kids, and it's at least partly because of Oliver's influence...

... if that's all true, then yes, I'll happily agree that Oliver knows what he's talking about, and we should seriously consider the ideas quoted in the OP.

But if the UK adopted a different set of policies, based on other recommendations, then my default position is that Oliver has no clue what he's talking about, and should either get back to talking about stuff he actually understands, or else simply shut up and cook.

Oh, that's right, he's a foreigner. He therefore has no right to make observations about the US. Got it.

I didn't know he was a foreigner until much later in the thread. I read the ideas quoted in the OP and rejected them based entirely on their merits (or lack thereof).

 

[Beerina]

What if eating healthier does nothing? Two recent studies:

1. Heart disease seems to be correlating with many hours of sedentary lifestyle, irrespective of weight or health of the person. People who run, then sit on the couch for many hours have the same increase in rates.

2. Although fatty food consumption correlates with increased cholesterol, etc. and that correlates with increased heart disease, tying high fat diets directly to increased heart disease is problematic at best, according to another recent survey of studies.


So it probably would work, maybe. Wouldn't it be lovely if 90% of the problem was tied to simply sitting for long hours each day?

 

[GreyICE]

What if eating healthier does nothing? Two recent studies:

1. Heart disease seems to be correlating with many hours of sedentary lifestyle, irrespective of weight or health of the person. People who run, then sit on the couch for many hours have the same increase in rates.

2. Although fatty food consumption correlates with increased cholesterol, etc. and that correlates with increased heart disease, tying high fat diets directly to increased heart disease is problematic at best, according to another recent survey of studies.


So it probably would work, maybe. Wouldn't it be lovely if 90% of the problem was tied to simply sitting for long hours each day?

Sorry, obesity is tied to a number of detrimental effects, and it's been constantly shown that exercise has at best a minor contribution to weight loss - the major player is diet.

So it would be lovely, but it's not the case in our reality.

 

[Cavemonster]

Beerina,
A simple search will turn up a huuuuuuuuge amount of studies on the benefits of proper nutrition. Remember, we're not just talking about limiting fatty foods, but replacing them with nutritious foods that kids aren't getting enough of.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/07/060721203414.htm

Poor nutrition early in life can impair neural development, leading to lower IQ in humans and flawed song learning in birds. Recent evidence indicates that many organisms can offset some of the changes associated with early poor nutrition by modifying their physical development. For example, poorly nourished children can undergo a period of accelerated growth once their diet improves, ultimately appearing normal as an adult.

http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0197458005002642
http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/reporter/index.html?ID=5236

There is absolutely no question that better nutrition will lead to better health outcomes in a variety of important areas. And this nutrition is key for developing children.