Many celebrity chefs are now touting the benefits of whatever diet it is they choose to endorse. Often there are some valid, healthy points but there is commonly misinformation to go with it. Jamie Oliver on the other hand is not following any gimmicks but is rather advocating the importance of regular, healthy eating. He is even undertaking a degree in nutrition! And he is also finding out that it can be difficult to sell this way of thinking.
“But if he’s a PR nightmare, he’s a health advocate’s dream because this is a guy hell-bent on making people understand the increasingly indisputable value of healthy eating, whatever the cost. And it’s not been easy — in the most recent season of his TV show Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, in which he travelled to the US in an effort to overhaul school lunches, Oliver was more or less shot down at every turn, and he was shattered by the end. His social and charitable endeavours are, by his own admission, a source of pride but one of constant stress.”
So why does he do it?
“Because it’s right — it’s just goodness, and it’s noise and noise makes change. We’ve come such a long way in 10 years,” he says. You just have to be patient and keep taking one for the team and be consistent and relentless.
Amongst his fame, Jamie Oliver has always kept others health and welfare in mind. He started educating people about healthy eating with ‘Jamie’s Ministry of Food’ and his cooking classes.
In 2008, he started Jamie’s Ministry of Food, which sends trucks into lower socio-economic suburbs so locals can educate other locals on healthy eating. The effect, particularly in Australia, is tangible. Victoria’s Deakin and Melbourne universities recently found participants who completed the 10-week cooking course upped their vegetable consumption, reduced their spending on takeout, and maintained the behaviour for six months afterwards.
Jamie tries to provide individuals with a lower socio-economic status with the tools and knowledge to make healthy choices that will decrease the risk of lifestyle related disease. Unlike some celebrity chefs and creators of fad diets, his goal isn’t solely to make a lot of money, irrespective of what is right.
“It’s the poorest, and the most unhealthy, who don’t have the loudest voices. That’s why we have trucks that go out into the suburbs because that’s where it gets a bit messy,” Oliver says. Poverty is linked to worse diets and health but it needn’t be. The distinguisher is access to fresh food and education. Every community we work in, they’re gagging for information.
“Last time I checked, Australia was the fourth most unhealthy country in the world — which isn’t what you think of when it comes to Australia, but I think it happens out of the cities.”
“Ministry of Food is really expensive for us but it works better here than it does anywhere else in the world because we collaborate with big business — The Good Guys, Woolworths, Huon Salmon. They’ve put millions in, and it’s been match-funded by local Aussie government — which, to be honest, is probably more entrepreneurial than any other I work with.”
Jamie now has a new book out and whilst I’m not a big fan of the term ‘super foods’, I appreciate that he is acknowledging evidence based information and ignoring the unsupported food trends.
“There are a lot of books out about diets and food fads and, you know, it’s all very nice that everyone’s here bringing the conversation up but there’s a lot of factually incorrect stuff, a lot of bollocks out there and some dangerous stuff as well,” he says. “I’m conscious of trendy radical people endorsing things that you shouldn’t have.”
Saturated fats are just one area onto which he’s tried to shine a light. “A lot of people say coconut oil is the best thing on the planet but it’s also one of the most saturated fats, so let’s get our facts right. It’s like, OK, come and meet five scientists who are the best on the planet and they’re going to tell you that you’re talking total bollocks.”
Writing the book also fueled Oliver’s love of learning and led him to expand his nutritional education, giving him an even deeper base of knowledge from which to distill expert health information in his inimitable “Jamie Oliver” style.
“I’ve just spent two years speaking to the cleverest people on the planet — people from Harvard, Oxford, from universities where they just study milk and nothing else,” he says. I’ve consumed so much information from the experts. “I’ve studied nutrition – I’ve got my diploma but now I’m doing a degree in nutrition. It’s very technical so I’ve tried to put it in simple terms.”
