By Damien McGuinness
After changing the way people cook, giving unemployed youth jobs as cooks at his acclaimed restaurant, 15, Jamie Oliver is now trying to bring nutrition to the wasteland of school cafeterias.
For a country with a reputation for bad food, Britain has always had a surprising number of celebrity chefs: from the 19th century Mrs. Beaton, who gave the lady of the house hints on how to manage the servants, to Delia Smith, who opened British eyes to the joys of balsamic vinegar in the 1970s. But then again, maybe a nation which traditionally prefers its lunches to be liquid is in need of the occasional word or two of advice.
"Naked Chef" Jamie Oliver has become that advisor. More mockney than Michelin, he has proven in one "sorted" swoop that being male, young and from Essex, hardly an area renowned for its classiness, is no bar to doing fancy things with squid and salad. Not content with merely getting Britons to distinguish between pappardelle and penne, Oliver recently took on an even greater challenge: waging war on the miserable grub served up in British schools.
The recently aired documentary series "Jamie's School Dinners," shocked the nation by describing in painful detail exactly what was in the school lunches British children were eating. When it comes to nutritional value, British school meals, Oliver found, scored a zero. In the series Oliver works together with feisty Dinner Lady Nora (now a semi-icon in her own right) in London's Greenwich district to revamp meals at local schools, replacing smiley faced puffs made with potato by-products, gristle burgers and canned peas with fresh vegetables and organic meat that actually have nutritional value.
5.3 million viewers
Oliver's fight to junk the junk food in schools has proven to be a winning formula. It has also proven to be the culinary equivalent of political dynamite. Cynics might point out that Oliver's book sales, which have sold hundreds of thousands of copies around the world, will get a further boost from the publicity generated by "School Dinners." But it can't be denied that he has single-handedly forced the government to move on an issue which has been ignored for decades. British Prime Minister Tony Blair last week contributed an article to the Observer newspaper, announcing that the government would take action. "We'll soon announce details of the new School Food Trust," he wrote "including substantial funding to enable it to assist schools nationwide. It will draw on the remarkable work of Jamie Oliver in schools."
The success has also taken Channel 4, which broadcast the series, by surprise. "In view of the success of Jamie's other programs we had expected this series to do well," says Channel 4 spokesman Matthew Robinson, "but we were really amazed by the wider human and political effect that the program has had. That is something which you could never predict." Indeed, the series drew as many as 5.3 million viewers per episode, with close to 10 percent of the British population tuning in. The nearly legendary cat fights between Oliver and Nora combined with the initial rejection of the Naked Chef's meals by pupils -- addicted as they were to a steady diet of grease and fried foods -- got British viewers hooked.
On the back of the program's success, Oliver has launched a campaign, called Feed Me Better, which aims to put pressure on the government to introduce higher nutritional standards. The campaign's Web site contains an online petition for the prime minister, which by this week had already gathered almost a quarter-million signatures.
Meanwhile, the British government is expected to release details on the School Food Trust within the next few weeks and the program should be up and running by summer.
"The Trust will provide advice to parents and schools on how to improve the quality of school meals," a Department for Education spokesman says. "We also want it to be a source of advice for the government and, of course, to parents." The government says it will revise the minimum nutritional standards for school meals and provide training for school cooks to make the dinners healthier by September 2005.
Real change or pre-election gimmick?
Not a bad result for a TV chef. But will it go far enough? Although the government did introduce free fruit for primary pupils in 2001, critics say that after eight years of scant improvements to school meals, Tony Blair's intentions smack of pre-election gimmicks.
"The School Food Trust is just a sticking plaster (band-aid) to get the government through the next election," says Phil Willis, a member of parliament and education policy spokesman for the Liberal Democrat Party. "It deflects the debate from the serious issue that young people are doing less and less exercise, and eating food that has no nutritional value. The government is not tackling any of the underlying issues. And 37 pence (53 euro cents or 69 US cents) is wholly inadequate to provide a balanced and healthy meal."
For many, the infamous 37 pence, the target amount schools are allowed to spend per meal, has become a symbol of all that ails the school dinner system. Oliver himself has suspended judgement on the government's plans until he hears the concrete proposals. "Rather than jumping into bed with either party," he wrote on his Web site this week, "I am just going to remain on the grass roots level and be the voice for the dinner ladies, parents and kids". What he is however clear about is that more funding is needed.
School lunch with 21.2 percent fat
School food started going down hill in the late 80s and early 90s when compulsory competitive trading was introduced by the government, then led by the Conservative Party. Schools were forced to put meal contracts out to tender -- and they often opted for cheaper rather than better, regardless of the nutritional standards. The inevitable consequence was reheated frozen meals and victuals so processed that calling it food at all would require a vivid imagination. Since "Jamie's School Dinners" the most renowned example has been Turkey Twizzlers. Manufactured by Bernard Matthews, they contain 21.2 percent fat when cooked -- double some recommended guidelines. After the show aired, a number of local authorities across Britain banned the product from school dinners.
The consensus in Britain is that "Jamie's School Dinners" has had a major impact on how school meals are viewed. "Jamie Oliver has really changed attitudes and he has brought to light what is actually in the food," says Margaret McParland, a teacher at English Martyrs Primary School in Litherland, a small town in Northwest England. "I didn't really think about it before. I just assumed that processed food was somehow real food but all mixed up. But the program showed what rubbish is really in these products."
At Our Lady of Compassion School in Formby near Liverpool, head-mistress Margaret Lynn echoes this sentiment. Although her school has pursued a healthy eating policy for many years now, with even 5-year-old vegetarians catered for, she says that since Oliver began championing the cause of better meals for school kids, there has been a definite shift towards healthier options and greater enjoyment of food.
"I really admire him and thought the program was very good," she says and pauses briefly before adding: "The only thing I didn't like was the bad language. He wouldn't have been able to swear like that in my school."
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