America Needs a Food Revolution

How far gone are we, when the idea of cooking fresh food is revolutionary??

I recently started watching the incredible ABC show, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.  The show focuses on Jamie Oliver's quest to enlighten people about food.  He does this by attempting to change school lunches in a small town in West Virginia (that happens to be the most obese and unhealthy town in America).  What is both fascinating and disturbing about this show is how ignorant we are about food, and our resistance for change.

The point that Jamie is trying to make is one that I whole heartedly agree with: No more Fast Food!  No more Processed Food!  We need to cook our own food.  Otherwise, you have no control as to what goes in your food (and the food you are feeding your family!)--and please believe, it's a lot of CRAP.  Just read the ingredients label.  The food industry has bamboozled us into thinking that we should buy, and not make ourselves, simple things like a loaf of bread.  Let's start using our pots, skillets, stoves and ovens.  It truly only takes about 10 minutes to cook a healthy meal--grill some fish, lightly sautee some vegetables in olive oil, and serve some brown rice.

Jamie is preaching the same thing that I have realized since I started this blog and really committed myself to cooking the food that I eat.  My entries in this blog are not representative of what I eat.  I'm not eating crepes everyday for breakfast, and cupcakes for lunch.  I drink a fresh fruit smoothie for breakfast, along with steel cut oatmeal w/ maple syrup and walnuts.  For lunch, I'll have a sandwich with some fresh vegetables and hummus--or maybe lentils or soup.  For dinner, I'll often have some brown rice, more vegetables (I'm currently on a mushroom, spinach, green bean rotation), maybe chicken or fish, and fruit for dessert.  And if I recently made cupcakes, yes I will have one of those as well.

But back to this fascinating show...

Jamie starts by going to an elementary school that serves a rotation of pizza and chicken nuggets (with chocolate milk) for pretty much every single breakfast and lunch.  He goes to a high school where the students are pretty much only eating french fries every day for lunch.  That is a lot of french fries.  And a lot of grease. And pretty much zero nutrition.  What's worse, is that the school meal bureaucrats consider french fries to be a vegetable.

I'm not opposed to pizza, chicken, and french fries. We are all entitled to splurges where we eat delicious, lovingly prepared food.  These kids are having reheated over-processed non-food.  Furthermore, the lack of diversity in what these children are eating will undoubtedly lead to unhealthy eating behavior in adulthood.  Which will lead to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

This show airs on Friday nights on ABC.  Please, please, please watch it!  You will be shocked, and you will probably learn something ( I certainly did--chocolate milk has more sugar than soda, and many school children don't know what a potato looks like).  If you want to catch up on the 3 episodes that you missed, go to Hulu.com where you can stream the full episodes.

Wine + Art

On a recent trip to Baton Rouge, I went to Corks-N-Canvas, an art studio that mixes learning to paint with drinking wine.  I was instantly intrigued--we all think of pairing wine with cheese, but why not art?

The studio focuses on the concept of art as entertainment.  With a little instruction, anyone can paint.  My mother had already been to the New Orleans Magazine Street location where she painted a crooked house. My mother happens to be extremely artistic, so her pieces looked very good.

That was an interesting thing about the class.  Yes, we were all painting the same object, but, everyones looked different. Very different. There was a bonafide artist sitting next to me, and her painting was downright inspiring.  The class was three hours long--though I was so into it, I could have used an extra hour or two.   Music even played lightly in the background (I was impressed by the playlist, which included India Arie).  It was therapeutic.  I was able to focus all of my energy in one place--the tip of my paint brush and the strokes that followed.

I have no doubt that this concept will be popping up all over the country.  Those of you with a lot of liquidity, look into franchising options!