You're Going To Eat That???

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     I got another e-mail from Jamie Oliver today.  No, we're not personal friends, I just joined his cause after watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution last year.  For those of you who don't know what it is, Chef Jamie Oliver is trying to get people to eat better, less processed and junk foods, and to take control of the obesity epidemic in this country.  On the show, he focused on Huntington, West Virginia, the unhealthiest city in America.  He should have asked someone from Ohio.  You can't save West Virginians from themselves....we've tried.

     All kidding aside, his latest effort is to get the USDA to overhaul the school lunch program.  It's something that desperately needs to happen.  With the crap they're feeding our kids in school, it's no wonder they're either hyperactive or comatose.

     When I overhauled my own kitchen, there were some protests from the kids.  "Whaddya mean we can't eat ramen noodles?  Where's the margarine?  Macaroni and cheese is supposed to be orange."  Things along those lines.  But I kept after it, and eventually, won over at least one kid.  The Girl now recognizes that she doesn't feel well when she eats junk, and that she's actually lucky to have a mom who insists on balanced, scratch-made meals every night.

     The Boy, however, is a different story.  He doesn't have a weight problem, yet, but he is the biggest junkie I've ever seen.  The Man and I have considered taking the sugar bowl to bed with us at night, because it seems as if we have to fill it up every morning in order to sweeten our coffee.  (The Man's coffee, not mine.  Coffee should be black.  Period.  But that's another rant for another day.)  And it's not just sugar.  The day I made the egg rolls and raita, we had a particularly heated argument.  He doesn't like cucumbers, so I told him to pick out another vegetable to eat.  He picked up another egg roll.  I can't get him to understand, or care, that he needs balance in his diet, and that Pepsi is not a food group.

     The biggest part of my battle with him is when he's not at home.  He used to stop at my mother-in-law's house every day on his way home from school for cookies and Pepsi.  Cookies, maybe, for a snack, would be okay.  But they're not even homemade.  I kept telling him if he could pronounce every ingredient on the label he could have them.  Heck, I can't even do that.  But Pepsi?  Pop has been the downfall of nutrition in this country.  I heard somewhere that there are twelve teaspoons of sugar in a can of pop.  Twelve.  I can make a dessert for ten people using less than that.

     The school is the worst.  I know what their budget constraints are, I really do.  But maybe, just maybe, instead of letting the US Army spend 7 million dollars a year sponsoring NASCAR, we should, you know, give our kids an orange once in a while.  Can't we give them a meal made from fresh ingredients?  In addition, the kids at our local school are allowed to spend their lunch money on anything they want, and the offerings aren't healthy.  They can buy extra cookies or whatever else they see, without even proving that they've finished their "healthy" lunch.  As far as I'm concerned, The Boy will be allowed to choose his own food when I no longer have to pay his health insurance, and when he can buy it himself.  Until then, it's my money, my kid, my choice, and I take the responsibility seriously.  I care about what he eats, and it would be a lot easier to teach him healthy habits if I had the school behind me.

     Okay, I'm done.  But I am asking anyone who reads this to speak up, too.  We can do better for our kids, and we should.  All it takes is commitment.

www.jamiesfoodrevolution.com/usda