Food Revolution, Episode 2

Episode 102

Soo...here we go! I'm watching these, as I can, on ABC.com, and would love to hear your thoughts on these matters. Are you joining the revolution? Or do you stand by your Twinkies as Breakfast Food stance. (I totally just made that up.)


1. Defending himself on the radio...ouch. He's getting pounded.
We start off the episode with a very crabby DJ ripping on Jamie. Poor guy.


2. The grinding of the chicken....that is absolutely nasty. But I thought he said they didn't make nuggets here that way.
So, I was a little confused. He said he had this fool-proof experiment to get kids off their nuggets. Then he said that, luckily, in this country nuggets weren't made this way anymore. So...was he just trying to make gross nuggets so the kids wouldn't eat them, or was he trying to educate them as to how nuggets were made??

3. The. experiment. failed. I have chills. CHILLS y'all. THEY ATE THE NUGGETS. Knowing there were ground up bones and skin and gizzards in there.
Umm...yeah. After watching Jamie grind up an entire chicken carcass - bones and all- and then bread it and fry it...the kids still. ate. it. I have no words. 

4. That pea costume...is cracking me up. It's so. bizarre.
The pea costume was just weird. Maybe if it didn't look so completely bizarre and...bouncy? I was really distracted by the bouncing. 

5. I love the idea of getting the kids excited for their foods!


6. It still failed. Big. Fat. Fail. Nobody ate the lunch.
Jamie pumped the kids up, got them really excited about all the veg and fresh things...and...still, nobody ate his lunch. :-(


7. The Food Test. We eat healthy here, and I'm sure my daughter couldn't name off those vegetables. Granted, she's 3. Still...I don't really like this test. Five year olds just don't know the names of these things. Sorry.

8. Poor lady lied. Of course, she couldn't...she's a church lady. Still...there are signs that fast food joints were visited this week.
The sweet lady who has volunteered her family for a Food Makeover couldn't get through the week with the proscribed meals and menus. Change is hard!

9. That girl, Katie, is FOUR?! She's so tall!
The daughter in the Guinea Pig family. She would TOWER over my three year old!

10. Starting to scare the parents...he's in 6th grade, and he might already have diabetes.
So sad. One of their sons is only in 6th grade, and he already has some of the tell-tale signs of diabetes. 

11. No doctor EVER says "complications of diabetes are terrible" right before he finds out, and tells the parents, if the kid has diabetes!!
 I understand that diabetes is a serious diagnosis, but if I took my (fat) kid in for a physical, and the doctor sat me down and told me how terrible a positive diagnosis for diabetes would be...before he's given me my results...that's just cruel. 

12. "When you hear that your son is morbidly obese, it kind of hurts. You helped put him there." BINGO. As mothers, we have a major responsibility...to not say 'yes' to every request the kids make. It's so hard, but it's our job. (Or whoever is the caregiver.)

13. More sugar in chocolate milk than soda. I did not know that.

14. That truck load of fat is NASTY.
Jamie loaded up a truck with enough fat to represent the fat consumed, by the entire school, in a month. It was a dump truck, y'all. A DUMP TRUCK full of fat. Ewwww...

15. Mrs. Blake saw a problem and she fixed it." Now they know their veg. Does it make them more likely to eat them??
The teacher in the classroom that failed the Veg Test took it up on herself to educate her kids. Several days later, when Jamie came back for a rematch, the kids aced it. I wonder if knowing all of that makes them any more likely to dig into a piece of slippery eggplant...

16. I'm gonna cook me some chicken stir-fry, yo!" Love it.
One of the sons in the Guinea Pig family (sorry - I'm awful with names, but you know who I'm talking about) has been taken under Jamie's wing. He wants to help him get some kitchen chops and, in the process, boost his self esteem. And now...he's going to cook some chicken stir-fry, yo!

17. "Kids. can. cook."
I do not doubt for a moment that kids can cook. Should all kids be allowed in the kitchen? There, I'm not so sure. To a certain degree, sure. My daughter, Ming Wai, is actually a great help in the kitchen and is party to almost all my baking projects. My son...granted, he's only 15 months old. Still, I can see it in his eyes - he'll be the kid that would rather throw than stir. Maybe he can be my official taste tester...


18. Not using a knife means you have no use for 'real' food. Hrm...I don't really agree.
I send a lunch at least 4 times a week with my husband, and there is never any need for him to use a knife. If an item needs cutting, I snip it up before hand. Otherwise, he runs the risk of flinging bits of steak or chicken all over the office while he's trying to cut it. In fact, MOST of the food I serve in this house does not need a knife. Maybe that's just the Chinese influence - I noticed, when I lived in Hong Kong, that the cook cuts everything into bite sized pieces before cooking it. If there's a bone in the way, they chop straight through that. That way, everything can be eaten with chopsticks or a spoon. So...I guess I have an issue with the over-generalization of the statement. However, that didn't stop me from serving pancakes to the kids the next morning, and handing Ming Wai a knife and showing her how to cut up her own pancakes!

19. Teachers in the lunchroom showing the kids how to use knives and forks...and getting them to eat.
I did like the idea that, in England, teachers roam the lunch room, correcting table manners and encouraging children to eat their lunches. 

20. Alice is here for the money. Heh.
Alice, of course, is the Not-A-Lunch-Lady with a major attitude. (She prefers to be called the Cook.)

21. He gets to stay for a few weeks. Good news!  Now, HOW is he going to stay in budget, and get the kids to like the food?

The full episode can be found here.

I'm really liking what I'm seeing. It does make me think, though...why is it that there are 450 children buying lunch every day?! How hard is it, really, to pack a sandwich in the morning? I have no plans to buy lunches for my kids when they're in elementary school. I've just always planned on packing it. The show does talk about healthy food at home, too, which is good...but I'm really curious as to why it appears that the entire school body is eating off red plastic trays at lunch time, instead of out of brown paper sacks...

Wouldn't that be a more interesting revolution?