Food Revolution, ep. 1x01

For the run of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, I’ll be posting episode recaps along with my thoughts. My intention is to create a space to discuss the show, its implications, and where we can go from here. I hope you enjoy.

We open up with nice shots of Huntington, West Virginia. Sunshine, Marshall University, etc. Then the statistics are pulled out: Huntington is the most unhealthy city in America. But Jamie Oliver is here to save them! But the people don’t want to be saved! Ahh, nice drama setup, ABC.

After the intro clips, the show opens up with Jamie driving Jack Shepherd’s truck through the rolling hills of Huntington and talking about how excited he is to work with the people there. The first thing Jamie does is head to the local radio station for an interview. The radio host automatically attacks him, asking Jamie who made him king and why he thinks he can change the way people eat. It’s a depressing start, but a sign of things to come.

The next morning Jamie comes to City Central Elementary, where he is going to work for a week. He arrives to see the kids eating pizza for breakfast – not breakfast pizza, but regular pepperoni and sausage pizza. Along with the pizza, everyone is drinking flavored milk. Some are even putting strawberry milk into their cereal.
After he checks out what the kids are eating, he heads into the kitchen to meet the cooks. He gets a tour of the kitchen, which is pretty darn nice. Except, as one woman says, “We’ve got a stove here, we hardly ever use it…” Mostly they are using the kitchen to reheat stuff. Like the chicken nuggets that will be that day’s lunch.

Thankfully they make their own bread, and Jamie joins them at that. (Why the kids will be eating both breaded chicken and bread will come up later.) Jamie views the bread making as a bit of hope, which is needed when then next menu item for the day is revealed: mashed potatoes made from “potato pearls”. Potato pearls are flakes that you add water to and create mashed potatoes. Sort of. Jamie asks if it is really potatoes. Alice responds with “I hope so.” The cooks tell Jamie to whisk it fast and then pour it into the pan quickly otherwise he’ll have problems getting it out of the bowl. Not a good sign. He tastes it; needlessly to say he thinks it’s disgusting.

After Jamie talks about how pissed off we should all be, he takes a tour of the freezer. Pretty much everything is precooked processed stuff, even the scrambled eggs that come in a frozen bag. Jamie says he didn’t know what most of the stuff even was. Alice challenges him, asking if he really thinks they could cook from scratch every day. Jamie says yes, and Alice is undeterred in her skepticism.

During lunch service Jamie takes a tour again, asking the kids what they had for dinner last night. The ones we’re shown say they had chicken nuggets (making two of the past three meals for these kids nuggets). Then we go to the cleanup line, where the kids hand over their trays – and we see that for the most part all the kids ate was the nuggets. Because they have to take everything, most of the food ends up going to waste.

After lunch Jamie confronts the cooks and tells them how unhappy he is. He brings out the boxes of stuff from the freezer and tries to point out all the artificial ingredients, but they aren’t having any of it. Eventually they concede that they did agree to having him there, but no one on either side is particularly thrilled about it anymore.

Next Jamie heads to one of the local churches and talks with the pastor. The pastor is all for Jamie’s plan and shows him the church directory, going through it by describing how the people have died or are sick. It’s grim, but a good reminder of why change is needed.

Jamie heads to the home of the Edwards family, who need help in their food habits. First he shows them their receipts from last week, and then he and Mama Edwards head into the kitchen to make the food from the past week. Pretty soon food is piled up all over the kitchen – fried biscuit doughnuts, chicken nuggets, bacon, pizza, etc. No veggies are visible anywhere, and she admits she never thought about how they weren’t eating them until now. Jamie has a bit of a heart to heart with her, letting her know how all the fried food is killing her family. Mama Edwards lets loose with emotion, admitting they need change. The family then bags up and tosses all that food, and buries the deep fryer in the backyard. They say a little prayer, which is more touching than Jamie expected, but a nice beginning to the challenge the family has before them.

One of the kids, Justin, wants to learn how to cook, and Jamie takes him up on that. He brings lots of fresh food into the house and they work together to make a dinner of spaghetti with scratch tomato sauce and chopped salad. Jamie leaves the family with a list of recipes to use in the coming week and says he’ll be back to check in on them. He’s most worried about Dad Edwards coming home and seeing the buried deep fryer.

From there we go to the storefront Jamie will be opening, where he meets with the head of the food in the school district, and gives her his proposal to feed fresh foods. She gives him a week to try it out, while coming within the budget and nutritional guidelines set forth by the USDA.

The next day is Jamie vs. School Cooks, as they both prepare their respective meals to offer the kids for lunch. The cooks try not to laugh at him as he runs down his menu (marinated chicken legs, brown rice, salad, yogurt, fruit) and then Alice starts complaining that he isn’t using plastic gloves in the kitchen. Jamie retorts that plastic gloves are no better than clean hands, and the argument falls by the wayside. In interview Jamie admits he’ll have nightmares about Alice for a while.

Before lunch the principal comes by and says Jamie needs to have 2 servings of bread/grain, and the rice only counts for one. Somehow, the pizza the school cooks are serving counts as 2, but instead of arguing Jamie just gets some bread buns from the pantry. Basically it seems to be because he doesn’t have time to argue, as he interviews that he thinks it’s a load of crap to serve bread with rice.

It’s sad to see Jamie’s meal go head to head with the pizza, because of course kids love pizza, no matter what form its in. Most kids choose the pizza, and we see shots in the cafeteria of kids who chose Jamie’s food spitting out the salad. It’s not a slam on Jamie though, considering when the trays are being emptied the fruit and veggie sides that were served with the pizza are also untouched. Alice has no problem gloating, however. I know we’re meant to hate Alice, and it’s working, but I also see where she’s coming from. No one likes being told what they’ve been doing for 20 years is wrong. At the same time, be a little nicer, OK Alice? In interview Jamie says that kids this age are too young to be choosing their food, so tomorrow they’ll only get to have his food.

The next morning (?) comes and Jamie is reading an article in the local paper about himself, based on interviews he did in England. It’s not flattering for him or for Huntington, and he tries to smooth things over with the school cooks, principal, and head of food services. The cooks don’t understand why he is doing what he’s doing and think he’s just disrespecting them. Jamie apologizes multiple ways, but they don’t seem satisfied. A reporter comes by with a camera and Jamie apologizes again, and assures that he has the best intentions in his project.

Out on the playground Jamie has a bit of a heart-wrenching moment, talking about how important it is for him to be there, how he is following his heart. He says we’re confused about who we are right now, and all our technology is fighting against our former values of being together as a family and enjoying a simple meal. He just wants to bring that back.

This episode will be rerun Friday at 7 p.m. CST, with a new episode following. You can watch episodes online here. To sign the petition that shows you care about school lunches (Jamie will be taking this to President Obama), go here.

My Thoughts:

Like I said above, I can see why the school cooks (who get all riled up when Jamie calls them lunch ladies – still angry about the Adam Sandler song, are we?) are resistant to Jamie. The menus they have follow the guidelines, even if they are the very slightest of following. It’s been that way for years, and they likely eat the food themselves, so it doesn’t matter to them. They don’t seem to care about all the food that gets thrown away, even though what’s tossed is the healthy stuff that is needed to round out the processed crap.

At the same time, these women are old enough to remember eating real food and should at least be taking a step back and saying its not right. I get that they want to keep their jobs, but Jamie is right – cause a ruckus. I hope he is successful in changing things (I assume he was, otherwise ABC probably would have decided not to air the show) and most of all I hope the people watching pay attention. My coworker is worried that the only people watching are those who already care about the issue. Maybe she’s right, but we’re the ones who can affect change. Let’s do it.

What did you think of the episode?