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Digital News Report – ABC’s ‘Jamie Oliver Food Revolution’ season 2 premiered last night and this year he has traveled to Los Angeles to try to get the LA Unified School District to let him change the school lunch meals. He was met with opposition that got him nowhere in the first episode.
Oliver had parents bring their children along to share what they eat for their school lunch at another place. The kid’s brought him plastic wrapped food products. One kid brought an apple and said he was home-schooled. The other kids had sweet rolls with frosting, and what looked like fast food that you might get from a convenience store. Oliver compared the packaged school lunch food to eating airplane food everyday.
Oliver showed the different cuts of meat on a live cow by spray painting how much each piece of meat will cost the consumer. Then he showed the actual butchered pieces of meat. His demonstration led to and explanation on how the left over pieces that are not able to be sold are used to be turned into dog food. He said that the left overs have higher levels of ecoli and dogs can handle this better than humans. But then he showed how this meat that is used for dog food is turned into ground beef to be eaten by humans. The shocking part is that during this process, Oliver said the meat processors use ammonia to get rid of the harmful bacteria. Oliver said that the use of ammonia does not need to be disclosed on the packaging of the meat because the USDA says that it is a process used to package the meat and it is not an ingredient. In the end he says that this ground beef product is being used in the school food system.
Oliver decided to work with a local fast food hamburger restaurant to try to convince the owner to change over to healthier lower calorie options. Oliver used fancier ground beef for the hamburgers and instead of ice cream in a shake he used yogurt. The fancy ground beef cost a whole lot more money, which the owner said he couldn’t change to something more expensive because customers don’t want to pay more money. With the yogurt substitution for the milkshake, the owner said while it tasted good, it was a smoothie and not a shake any longer.
The other demonstration that Oliver showed was how much added sugar in flavored milk the LAUSD gives out for the school lunch program in one weeks time. There are around 700,000 to 750,000 students that go attend schools in the LAUSD. He had a school bus overfilled with sugar. It was amazing to think how much added sugars kids are having every day. He did this demonstration because earlier in the show he had attended a school meeting discussing how the chocolate or strawberry flavored milk is consumed more than regular milk. Oliver complained that kids don’t need the extra sugar. Also Oliver said that there is as much sugar in the flavored milks as there is in a soda.
Next week, Oliver will be trying to gain access to the LA schools, but is going to be met with police. It will be interesting to see if he will make any progress in Los Angeles.
By Victoria Brown
Jamie At School Board – Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution YouTube Video