This Lunch Lady Wants to “High-Five” Jamie O & Says:

Shame on Those in the Movement “Dishing” Him

When Jamie’s show began airing I was trekking through Nepal, at peace in a meditative state in the Himalayas.  Upon return I found a tremendous amount of angst, negativity and out-right anger from many of my colleagues in the School Food Movement and it surprised me.  Jamie is a very positive guy – how could he anger so many from our same “team”?

What I read was distressing, Arun Gupta founding editor of the Indypendent Newspaper wrote:

In short, the “Food Revolution” has flunked out. At Central City Elementary, where Jamie burst in with loads of fanfare, expense and energy, the school has reintroduced the regular school menu and flavored milk because the “Food Revolution” meals were so unpopular. In what looks like a face-saving gesture, Jamie’s menu remains as a lunchtime option, but given the negative student response, don’t be surprised if it’s quietly phased out by next school year.

Then as I researched further I found Deb Eschmeyer with Farm to School who wrote:

Food service staff, like Diane, (lunch ladies as Jamie calls them) have an uphill battle that he doesn’t even touch upon or hasn’t yet. I wish he would bring to the surface the myriad obstacles to bring fresh local food to the lunch room, most of which can be overcome, but it can’t necessarily be done in a couple weeks even with star-studded British flavor. Many food service staff are doing the best they can with what they receive. If we increase the reimbursement per meal, give the kids enough time to eat, give food service proper equipment to prepare meals, many ‘lunch ladies’ would do better than what Jamie cooks up. (hmmm, a challenge?)

On the other side we have Kate Adamick who is blogging about Jamie’s show for the Atlantic Monthly, who wrote:

What finally prodded me to accept the offer were the surprisingly negative comments about Oliver’s show made by my contemporaries in the food systems world. In the past two weeks, I have been shocked that so many of my colleagues have become preoccupied with who is getting—or who is taking—credit for waking the country up to the catastrophe that is school food. Those of us who are truly concerned about the welfare of America’s children, health care system, and food supply should be grateful that long-awaited and much-needed attention to what has become at best a national embarrassment, and at worst a national crisis, has finally arrived. The revolution will be televised.

Marion Nestle, whose blog gives a “thumbs up” to the show discussed the anger of the many in the movement:

I’m kind of stunned by the hostility the programs have evoked among people I would have expected to support these goals. My teaching assistant, Maya Joseph, a doctoral student at the New School, categorized the criticisms for me:

• the wounded ego messages (how dare Jamie Oliver not mention MY work!!)

• the ugly foreigner message (how dare Jamie tell AMERICANS what to eat!)

• the outraged sensitivity messages (how dare Jamie Oliver not take account of X,Y, and Z when he so rudely ballooned into this town).

It seemed impossible to me that Kate, Deb, Marion and Arun were all watching the same show.

I needed to see it for myself.

Since coming home I’ve watched three of Jamie’s shows and I really enjoyed them.  I found myself both laughing and commiserating with him.  I’ve been working in school kitchens for over a decade and I’ve had my share of Alices in all the districts I’ve worked in.  I’ve certainly seen my share of food service directors smirking with arms crossed, telling me all the reasons why we can’t do that and that our kids won’t eat that.  I’ve even had USDA program reviewers tell me we needed to serve more bread when they meant grain, not realizing that the brown rice I served with fresh made corn tortillas from real masa were both whole grains.

There are five major challenges for all of us in the trenches doing this work: 1)Food, 2)Finance 3)Facilities, 4Human Resources and 5) Marketing/Education.

• Food: we have to be able to procure high-quality, healthy REAL food, and oh by the way, have guidelines that support cooking as opposed to reheating the likes of chicken nuggets and tater tots.
• Finance: we need more than the current reimbursement rate, $2.68 is just not enough and most districts spend less than $1.00 per day – per child on lunch.
• Facilities: we have to have stoves, walk-ins, ovens and knives.
• Human Resources: training – training training (just like Kate says in her blog).
• Marketing/Education: – just like Jamie says: we need to teach kids to cook, we need to educate them around good food choices and we need hands-on experiential learning in cooking and gardening classes.

So what’s the rub with Jamie’s show?  Well it is TV and reality TV at that, but we all know what that is and should enjoy it if we like or frankly not watch and not criticize.

Perhaps many of my colleagues wished they’d been given accolades for all of their good work and others wished he’d focused on the success stories happening all around the country.  My answer to that is, if you’re doing that good work you are getting plenty of accolades every time you see the kids eating healthy food.

And then there were those who focused on the fact that the kids don’t like the food and hence proclaimed the project a failure.  Well my experience is that most kids don’t like change and that it takes months if not years (in fact two years in Berkeley) before the kids really start to “get” the new food.

In my opinion, we should all be “high-fiving” Jamie and thanking him. Why? Because he’s doing what all of us put together and even Michele Obama haven’t been able to do – he’s bringing the discussion to the dinner table of homes all across the country!

In fact, almost 300,000 people have signed his petition and he’s single-handedly doing what collectively we haven’t done: gotten people – not just the converted – but people from every demographic all across the country talking about kids, schools and food.

So this Lunch Lady says: High-Five Jamie and thanks for all you’re doing!!!