A Brit Looks to Help the US Shape Up
December 21, 2009
British food guru Jamie Oliver is taking on the U.S.; or one small piece of it anyway. Huntington, West Virginia is a small city with some of the highest rates of obesity and obesity-related diseases in the U.S. Oliver will focus on improving school lunches, and on teaching people to how to cook.
A similar project in Britain ran into some noisy resistance, with parents so opposed to changing school lunches that they delivered fast food to children through the schoolyard fence. But now, a year into the British project, the tide may have turned, and community-based cooking classes for rank beginners are oversubscribed.
Oliver thinks that teaching people to cook is critical – especially people who have never cooked before. “Being in the kitchen is the most simple part of life,” he says. “People talk about it like it was some sort of science experiment…..I am a great believer that eating good food and enjoying it around the table with your friends and family is the cornerstone to a reasonably balanced and happy life.”
So let’s keep our fingers crossed, and our eyes on the schoolyard fence. A tv series on the Huntington project will air starting next year.
Mealtimes Matter Video
from Miriam Weinstein
About Miriam
Miriam Weinstein is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. As a journalist, she has won several awards from the New England Press Association. Her work has appeared in Boston Magazine, the Boston Globe magazine, Hope, and ParentSource. A former staff member for North Shore Weeklies and freelancer for Essex County Newspapers, she writes restaurant reviews and food columns as well as features on a wide variety of subjects. She lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts, with her husband and has two grown children.
The Surprising Power of Family Meals
In her book, The Surprising Power of Family Meals, Miriam Weinstein shows how this basic human institution helps nourish and strengthen our families today.