BY TISHIN DONKERSLEY, M.A.

Onions will peel and potatoes will strip their skin for this chef. Better known as The Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver is about drilling food down to the “bare essentials” and is making some significant noise about getting you, and your children, back into the kitchen. His passion for restoring good, healthy food in the hands of children and offering healthy food in the school systems has fueled his efforts to take his message about cooking worldwide. Jamie Oliver began his fascination for food working in the kitchen of his parents’ pub/restaurant, The Cricketers, in England.

While developing his culinary craft, Jamie fell into an opportunity at the acclaimed River Café working alongside of Rose Gray (who passed away in 2010) and Ruth Rogers, two renowned British chefs who changed the outlook of Italian cooking throughout Britain and taught him to make fresh and simple food. It was in that kitchen, in 1997, that he was discovered during the filming of a documentary about the River Café. Soon after, Jamie was offered his own BBC television show – The Naked Chef. His platform was to get back to basics with ingredients, entertain viewers with a casual approach to cooking, and re-energize families to get them back into the kitchen. The show launched in 1999 and won many awards. That same year, the tie-in book The Naked Chef became an instant best-seller in the UK, and Jamie was invited by former Prime Minister Tony Blair to prepare lunch at 10 Downing Street. Jamie Oliver was suddenly a household name in Britain, and gaining popularity in the United States.

In 2001, Jamie launched another cooking show, Happy Days With the Naked Chef, and took his show on tour to Australia and New Zealand, selling out at each venue. Upon his return to England, he felt inspired to “give something back” to his community and the hospitality industry, and to “keep cooking skills alive.” With enthusiasm and purpose, Jamie opened a nonprofit training restaurant, the Fifteen, to provide culinary training for disadvantaged youth who were unemployed and facing many life challenges, and train them for careers in the restaurant industry. The objective was to provide a positive path for them and reconnect people with healthy food. Jamie’s belief is that there is a lost generation of youth who do not know how to cook or prepare a meal, and someone needs to teach them. With so much of our food today being pre-packaged, in a microwaveable container, or from a fast-food drive-through, many of our youth yield to the convenient instead of preparing a healthy meal.

Throughout the next 11 years, Jamie received international recognition. He was given the Member of the Order of the British Empire, as well as a plethora of community and chef awards; churned out best-selling cookbooks and award-winning documentaries; was invited to cook for many celebrities, including Oprah, and President Obama at the G20 meeting in London; was the winner of TED Talks prize in 2010; opened three restaurants, including Union Jacks with Arizona local Chris Bianco; and he now runs a cooking school and catering business – and all the while, Jamie Oliver’s philosophy and mission hasn’t changed.

 “My philosophy to food and healthy eating has always been about enjoying everything in a balanced and sane way.”

Jamie has used his success to build the Jamie Oliver Foundation “to inspire people to reconnect with food,” and has officially declared war on the growing public health threat of childhood obesity. “It’s all about raising awareness and individual responsibility…and, ultimately, keeping cooking skills alive,” Jamie says about his Foundation.

In the United Kingdom (UK), a 2010 report from the NHS Information Center for Health and Social Care reports “around three in ten boys and girls (aged 2 to 15) were classed as overweight or obese,” which reflects very little change since the year prior. Additional data revealed “around one in ten students aged 4 to 5 years and one-fifth of students aged 10 to 11 years were classed as obese.”

More recently, The Guardian reported that one in three children are overweight or obese and “one-third of students – 33.4 percent – are either overweight or obese by the time they reach fifth grade.”

These alarming statistics regarding healthy eating and childhood obesity caused such a concern to Anne Milton, the UK public health minister, that in 2012 she launched the nationwide “Change4Life” campaign, which provided cookbooks and recipes in support of its goal – to help families learn about a balanced diet.

Across the pond, our childhood obesity stats from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [see side bar Childhood Obesity Stats-US] aren’t much better, as the “Super Size” society carries on and is grossly affecting our youth.

While Parliament moves forward to help families and reduce the public health concern, Jamie’s “Big Vision” for his Foundation is to improve lives through the appreciation, education, and understanding of good food, to learn the origin of food, and to develop good cooking habits that can be passed down from generation to generation.

“We’ve worked with kids as young as 4 through 80 [years old]. We want to give everyone the tools, skills, and knowledge to make a lasting, positive impact on their lives,” Jamie said.

Jamie’s Foundation in the UK currently houses four projects: the Fifteen Apprentice Program, Kitchen Garden Project, Jamie’s School Dinners and the Ministry of Food. Jamie’s Food Foundation in the U.S. consists of a growing number of programs to support and fuel the global project – the Food Revolution.

Fifteen Apprentice Program

The Fifteen Apprentice program was started to “radically transform lives” by helping unemployed and troubled young people between the ages of 18 and 24 to gain meaningful employment, improve long-term health, reduce risk of homelessness, improve budgeting skills, and build professional and personal relationships. The program creates a highly supportive and familial environment for the apprentices and helps them get a fresh start.

In a report completed by the program, for every £1 invested, £9.50 of social value is generated. Fifteen is a 12-month program that combines on-the-job training with college-based work and personal development, and trains them in a number of culinary sections (pasta, meat and grill, fish and mains, etc.) to ultimately become professional chefs.

Jamie considers his training program to take on a common sense approach to cooking, “[When] they buy the freshest foods available and do as little to them as possible to make delicious food – if ingredients are good, you don’t need to do much to make them really sing.”

For Jamie, the best part of this program is watching his students graduate. “It’s one of the proudest moments in my career. I have students who are running restaurants now who I’m quite sure would be in jail, or even worse, if it wasn’t for Fifteen. From our London restaurant alone, nearly 80 percent of graduates are still working in the food business, and after ten years of Fifteen, for me that’s incredible,” Jamie said with a smile.

Kitchen Garden Project

The love of gardening is a part of Jamie and his family life. On his website, Jamie writes a blog about his own garden back in Essex and provides tips on gardening.

This personal craft and joy of gardening has manifested into The Kitchen Garden Project – an extension of Jamie’s original Feed Me Better campaign aimed to provide healthy lunches to British school children.

His goal is to resurrect the lost art of cooking among our children and the ability to engage in practical cooking. Schools no longer have the facilities to teach these “Home Ec” skills, and basic cooking instruction has been replaced with computer classes. With obesity on the rise, Jamie’s solution is to work with school systems, local government, and companies to develop specialist kitchens within the school to teach our kids to cook from scratch.

Jamie’s project integrates cooking into the curriculum, and has kids attending cooking class alongside math, science and physical education. Children will have the chance to test their boundaries with new foods and challenge their taste buds with new textures, flavors, and creations. Over the long term, children exposed to this project will choose healthier foods and feel empowered to make their own meals with healthy choices in mind.

Jamie’s School Dinners

At Greenwich elementary schools, authorized absences decreased by 15 percent, test scores and in-class behavior improved, and concentration abilities increased – these are astonishing discoveries found by researchers from Oxford and Essex Universities after studying the effects of the implementation of Jamie’s School Dinners program, which is also an extension of his Feed Me Better program geared to shift the nutrition-based standards of school lunches by limiting the foods high in fat, salt, and sugar. What was the difference? Junk food was out, and good food was in­! A drastic shift occurred with these school children by simply supplying a healthier school lunch.

The Guardian reported that before the program, an average lunch entree choice consisted of burgers and chips, sausage rolls, fish fingers or chicken nuggets. After implementation of Jamie’s Dinner program, lunch choices looked more like roast beef, mushroom and lentil bake, Mexican bean wrap, lamb and vegetable pie, or creamy coconut fish. Delish! Imagine if we implemented this at our local schools!

Ministry of Food

Jamie’s direction is clear – “to inspire as many people as possible to love and enjoy good food” – and it is a common thread throughout his Foundation.

The Ministry is based on a “British initiative from the Second World War, when the government set up a national network of food advisors and teachers to educate the public about food and nutrition,” and is by far the most important of the campaigns to Jamie. This initiative is filled with vigor and venom to attack diet-related diseases around the world. With the support of the British government and international to local sponsors, the Ministry has opened Centres throughout the UK and Australia (AU) to help families learn to cook by providing free kitchen facilities, teachers, and classes on cooking and nutrition.

The Good Foundation in AU, a charitable arm of The Good Guys who run a Ministry Centre, proudly states that “the Centre is a place where everyone, regardless of age, gender or ethnicity, can learn basic cookery skills in a friendly, supportive and fun environment.”

Food Revolution

Rise up and make some noise, America! Fighting childhood obesity takes shape on the front line – your kitchen. After Jamie worked in the United States, he was exceedingly motivated to help shape the way America eats.

His initial attempt was to introduce his program to the unhealthiest city – Huntington, West Virginia, according to a 2006 CDC report – and improve the health of school children. While he was met with criticism from school officials, cooks and the community in his attempt to take away their French fries and chocolate milk from the cafeteria and replace them with salad and fresh food, Jamie didn’t give up on his goal to help this community.

“The Food Revolution is about saving lives,” Jamie states.

One of his biggest critics, DJ Rod Willis, “The Dawg,” said, “One person can not change 50,000 people in the city of Huntington, West Virginia…and we’ve got better things to do than learn a few recipes,” and continued to slam Jamie’s program on his show. Rod was wrong – from steel workers to teenagers, Jamie spread his message of good health, taught over 1,000 people to cook, and campaigned for funds to continue the Revolution in the community. It was down to the last few weeks to obtain funding and determine whether the Revolution would sustain – and then Cabell Huntington Hospital donated $50,000 to help teach school cooks and the community how to prepare healthy food. Their Food Revolution – now called the Huntington Revolution – won. Rod and Jamie are now good friends. Reruns of the Food Revolution show are found on BBC America.

Jamie continues his Revolution through his Big Rig Mobile Kitchen, home cooking courses, schools and communities, and activists programs throughout the US. Jamie is bringing millions of people together to fight obesity with good, healthy food. May 19 is the official Food Revolution Day; in 2012, 664 cities, 62 countries, 460 public events and 541 dinner parties participated in this celebration. Jamie encourages people around the world to sign the Food Revolution petition (goal of 1 million people) and support the mission to keep cooking skills alive, and encourage schools to offer healthier lunches. Visit JamieOliver.com to sign up.

With the world’s focus on London for the 2012 Olympics, it was the perfect time for Jamie to pay homage to the flavors of Britain with the release of his new cookbook Jamie’s Great Britain. From Yorkshire to Essex to the Scottish borders, this book is chock full of traditions and cultures from his homeland. It will truly excite the foodie within.

Recipes include Kate and Will’s Wedding Pie, Glasgow Potato Scones with Scrambled Egg and Smoked Salmon, Empire Roast Chicken with Bombay Roasties, and Indian Gravy and Chocolate Orange Steamed Pudding. There is also an arrangement of quick and easy salads, sandwiches, vegetable sides and many more recipes to excite the palate.

If you are planning to visit Britain, you can download his Jamie Oliver Food Guide app, which will give you over 1,000 places to eat, visit and shop.

The Union Jacks

When Jamie and Chris met, it was as if Jamie had found a “kindred spirit and fellow food ‘geek.’” With a love of produce and “vibrant food culture,” these two were meant to work together. Their friendship grew, and together they opened Union Jacks, a British-inspired menu filled with wood-fired flatbreads – a specialty appreciated by Chris and Jamie.

“Chris is absolutely brilliant, and working with him to create flatbreads from ALL British ingredients has been incredible. We’ve sourced wheat that only grows in Britain and created some amazing things,” Jamie said.

Here you’ll find pizzas named the Red Ox, Woodman, and Pimp Your Juliette, or flavorful salads such as the Heritage Tomatoes, Shallot, Tarragon with Apple Balsamic Dressing. Then top if off with Black Forest Gateau pudding. The experience awaits you across the pond. Unionjacksrestaurants.com

“…no one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.” ― Julia Child, My Life in France

Eating healthier starts at home, and with a little time, effort and education, we can get ourselves and our children back into the kitchen to connect with healthy food – and maybe even with each other.

Childhood Obesity Stats – US

• The percentage of children aged 6 to 11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7 to 20 percent within the last 30 years.
• In children aged 12 to 19 years, obesity increased from 5 to 18 percent during the same time.
• Obese children are more likely to have risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.
• Obese adolescents are more likely to have pre diabetes.
• Children and adolescents who are obese are at greater risk for bone and joint problems, sleep apnea, and social and psychological problems such as poor self-esteem, behavior and learning problems and depression.
• Overweight and obesity are associated with increased risk for many types of cancer, osteoarthritis, strokes and Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
• Obese children are more likely to become obese adults.
• Parental obesity is a large contributor to childhood obesity.
• Children with a BMI that falls between 85 and 95 percent are classified as at risk for overweight.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention