Talkin’ bout a Revolution…a Food Revolution that is

I recently heard about a new TV show called Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution (Friday’s on ABC from 9-10pm). The series begins in Huntington, WV, which has been called the unhealthiest city in America. There Jamie launches his initiative to educate adults and children on healthy eating habits, starting with the school lunch program.


It’s definitely time for a food revolution. Today’s youth are the first generation expected to live a shorter lifespan than their parents. The obesity rates and associated risks are soaring. If that’s not a wakeup call to do something drastic about eating habits, I don’t know what is. It’s on us, the adults, to do something about it.

My husband and I reminisce about the school lunches of our youth and how unhealthy they were. Apparently nothing has changed—school lunches are still as processed, preservative-laden, pre-packaged and wasteful as ever, maybe even more so. That’s a shortsighted plan and it’s failing our youth.

For our family, we try to eat whole food as much as we can at home and when out and about (we do have occasional junk!) and I pack my children’s lunches most of the time. They eat school lunches sometimes, but we limit it.

It’s definitely not easy to make healthy food choices in this society. It’s often inconvenient and more work to cook and eat in a healthful way, but it’s also more satisfying to be feeding wholesome foods to my children, helping them to develop good eating habits and be healthy and long term.

Visit http://www.jamieoliver.com/ to sign Jamie’s petition to improve school food and for ideas on how else you can help. Indiana has over 7500 supporters so far, and almost 400,000 people nationwide have signed it. We’re ready for a revolution.