Jamie Oliver Sings the Sugar Blues
Food is all the rage these days, especially concern about how bad so much of our food is. There’s the incredibly successful and compelling Supersize Me, the documentary following one man’s decision to eat only MacDonalds meals and the devastating effects it has on his body. More recently, HBO produced The Weight of the Nation.
Today’s “Wednesday TED Talk” turns the spotlight on British chef turned media personality Jamie Oliver, who has been on a crusade for several years now to change the way we eat. More specifically, he is trying to change the way we feed our children. Oliver is one of the few folks in the food industry who seems absolutely committed to telling the truth about the food we package and serve our children in restaurants, at schools, and at home. Chief concerns for chef Jamie: processed sugar, preservatives, and all kinds of chemical additives. Why? Because these foods – all unnecessary – are combining to create an unprecedented epidemic of obesity and all kinds of other diseases in our children and in ourselves.
One of the more dramatic moments in the video is when Jamie brings in a wheel barrow of sugar to demonstrate just how much artificial sugar our kids ingest in a year. There are a lot of remarkable things about Jamie’s work, but maybe two insights that have stayed with me are 1) the degree to which we’ve assumed our present eating habits have always been this way, when in fact they’ve only taken hold over the last generation and largely in response to food laws favoring the growing of corn and soybeans, and 2) how relatively easy it is to make a few changes that can dramatically influence our diet.
For those who are interested, here are some resources I’ve found most helpful in thinking about food:
Jamie’s own site, where you can find out more about his work as well as find all kinds of additional information and recipes.
Sugar Blues
NPR’s Talk of the Nation ran an interesting story on a scientist arguing that sugar should be regulated like alcohol.
Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
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But try telling people they don’t need to eat meat more than once a week, if that. And that the dairy INDUSTRY is what told us we need 3 glasses of milk a day- which is full of FAT. We are the only species that continues to drink milk after infancy – and milk from another animal…—- I wish I had the time to eat organic and vegan. I settle for trying to stay away from processed food as much as possible and eat lots of fresh fruits and veggies. I sometimes fail miserably, then get back on the wagon. Church potlucks are a minefield. No one has ever heard of whole wheat buns… I have given up giving up meat. Without the protein, I’d be on a sugar high from white bread, white pasta, fruit punch and desserts. I know they are loving me with food, but ……
I grew up with a mother who served a variety of vegetables and fruit. She was always trying new recipes. She shopped weekly at a produce store in addition to the grocery. I feel fortunate.