Cultures exposed!

Last night I watched the second episode of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (the first two episodes are available online here), and I have never seen such an enlightening exposure of contemprary American culture.

First of all, I am not a food evangelist. What we eat is of some importance - certainly interesting to study and discuss - but it is only one measure of deeper issues in our culture. I am more interested in the culture of groups of people, and what lifestyle choices reveal about their root values.

I'm also not interested in debating the merits of "reality" television. Accepting the limitations of the genre (how "real" is anyone when a host of cameras are following them around?), it is certainly more worthwhile to use reality TV to study small-town America than having sex parades of bachelors and bachlorettes.

In a nutshell, Brtish chef Jamie Oliver has come to Huntington, West Virginia, to start a "food revolution," a transformation of the way Americans eat. His particular targets are a volunteer family named Edwards and Central City Elementary School.

With those caveats having been said, here are some amazing insights from four of the cultures exposed in this episode.

Family culture

The Edwards family are very brave to let Jamie come into their lives so intimately. They are uniformly obese, and an analysis of their week's worth of meals reveals no surprises: highly processed, high fat, easy-to-prepare food like corn dogs, doughnuts, pizza, pancakes, hot dogs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, etc. Jamie makes the comment that "everything is yellow and red." The family eats no vegetables or fruits.

The Edwards are sweet people. The mother wants to do better in feeding her family, and laughs nervously as Jamie exposes their folly of their food choices. The father is apparently away on business a good bit and seems somewhat passive in his leadership.

My commentary:

When confronted by the preponderance of convenience food in their diet, Mrs. Edwards makes an off-handed remark about "just trying to get through each day." I think that Americans in general think they are too busy (I hear this all the time), and yet we live in an age of cheap appliances and instant information. When will we take responsiblity for our choices and prioritize the best things, like cooking healthy meals for our families? Not to mention keeping the Sabbath...

I don't think Jamie's analysis of their food consumption was a complete shock to the Edwards family, but habits are hard to change. And the incentives seem small. Americans in general have become very poor at long term goals and deferred gratification. We want pleasure now, and few things seem to be worth really working and waiting for.

Jamie only alluded once to the possiblity that members of the family take solace or comfort in eating, but this is no doubt a major theme in our culture. The fact that food is a quick and easy-to-obtain (and generally socially aceptable) medicine makes one wonder, how wounded are we? I suspect we are much more desperate than we are willing to admit. I know it sounds pompous, but somewhere and somehow we need to learn to find our comfort in God alone.

Community Culture

Huntington, West Virginia, was chosen for this special because of a study (never identified in the program) that revealed it is one of the "unhealthiest" cities in America. While this may or may not be true, it is probably representative of most American communities. What was evident from the snapshot of Huntington conveyed through the program was: a fairly high level of obesity; the usual availablity of fast food; a somewhat complacent attitude about the status quo.

Jamie's presence stirred controversy through interviews with both the newspaper and a popular radio show. The radio host openly ridiculed Jamie's somewhat boastful claim that he can change the eating habits of a whole city, and the newspaper did the usual hatchet job of taking statements out of context to paint Jamie as a "Huntington-hater," instead of the "bad-nutrition-hater" he would prefer to be known as.

My commentary:

Although we have all seen instances when a prideful person is more invested in defending himself than in receiving constructive criticism, it is pratty dramatic when it is portayed by a whole community. It would have been refreshing to see someone admit, "Yes, we know we are eating ourselves to death, but that's our suicide method of choice, so leave us alone." Or to see someone humbly accepting Jamie's criticism and actually changing.

As is typical when folks do not want to face the truth about themselves, they turn the focus from their bad choices to killing the messenger through character assassination. Over and over they yell, "Jamie's saying we're stupid!" while offering no defense for their bad choices. I have spent hours and hours of my adult life in frustration over discussions which never address the merits of the argument, but turn quickly to character defamation, as though that outweighs everything.

A Christian worldview would recognize that there are no perfect vessels, Jamie Oliver least of all.  Ever hear of "total depravity"?  A mature person would say, "What can I learn from this donkey?" (Numbers 22:30)

School Culture

Jamie has ongoing conflicts with the "lunch ladies," who see him as intrusive, arrogant, and unlearned in the ways of the infallible nutrition guides from the USDA. The district nutritionist works hard at being open-minded, but is also concerned about the almighty nutrition guides, as well as cost-effectiveness. The school principal is sympathetic to Jamie's presence, but appropriately protective of the orderliness of school functions and the mental health of his staff and the children.

Three interesting scenes give an insight into school culture. In one scene, pictured above, Jamie demonstrates all the disgusting parts of a chicken that are ground together to make chicken nuggets, and proceeds to make such a chicken nugget in the spot. After breading and pan-frying this gunk right before the children's eyes, Jamie asks "Who would like to eat this?" and is blown away when every hand goes up. Jamie asks "Why would you want to eat it after you saw how it was made and what went into it?" One child answers, "Because I'm hungry." The other wide-eyed children nod in mutual assent.

In the second, Jamie takes two trays of food into a kindergarten room. The children cannot identify, by name, cauliflower, eggplant, or even tomatoes and potatoes. They do not know that french fries come from potatoes, or that ketchup is made of tomatoes. They have no trouble identifying french fries, corn dogs, and pizza.

In the last, Jamie is taken to task by the kitchen staff and the nutritionist when a meal he has created for the lunchroom fails to include "two breads" by USDA standards. The meal already included brown rice, which Jamie (correctly) asserted was quite enough starch and fiber for one meal. But never mind, Jamie and the kitchen ladies scramble to pull out some sliced white bread to "nutritionally balance" the meal.  Really.

Other important insights from the school culture: when Jamie's first meal went head to head with pizza as a choice on the lunch line, it is not surprising that very few of the children choose Jamie's chicken legs over the pizza. And when his second meal is served as the only choice, school officals are horrifed by the amount of uneaten food dumped in the garbage at the end of the meal. When Jamie asks that the children be given knives and forks to eat with for his third meal, the response of the lunch ladies and school staff is similar to the horror that might be shown when someone utters a public obscenity.

My commentary:

First of all, what is significant about this show is that they actually got a camera crew into a public school in the U.S. School culture is remarkably guarded in the U.S., for both good and bad reasons. I could not be happier that American adults got to see it first hand. The unfamiliarity of adults with what actually goes on (even parents with children in these institutions) is staggering.

If anything in the stories above concerns you, (and if it doesn't, God help you), then we should wonder where we should point the finger of responsiblity. So let's look at each incident separately:

1. The children want to eat the yucky chicken-parts nugget (which astonishes Jamie, who says that this would never happen in England, where he comes from). The explanation finally given, which I find plausible, is that the American diet of high fat, processed food leaves our bodies still hungry. This is not the school's fault (alone).

2. The children cannot identify normal vegetables in their natural form. This is also not entirely the school's fault; however, the kindergarten teacher heroically creates a food unit and invites Jamie back in a week later where the children pass his test with flying colors. Hooray for this conscientious teacher! I believe public schools are replete with such good teachers (and public schools are still a very bad idea).

3. Jamie has to follow idiotic nutrition guidelines from an USDA manual. This is not the fault of the district nutritionist, the school principal, or the lunch ladies. But they are all complicit in a bureaucratic system which defies common sense. Somebody needs to step up, be the adult, and tell the government "nutrition nanny" to take a hike! But the parents are happy to have the free babysitting and cheap meals which theydon't have to prepare, so no one speaks the obvious.

4. When Jamie's chicken and brown rice meal is rejected in favor of pizza, the lunch ladies and school officals speak as though the children are sovereign, and it is their duty to appease them as much as possible. Then they take the very bold move of allowing Jamie's second meal to be served (without a choice to opt for pizza), but chastise Jamie over the amount of (his excellent) food which is thrown away. Who is running the asylum (or prison might be a better analogy here)? I can't tell you how wrong it is for adults to abdicate leadership for children's lives and well-being.

In a later interview, the nutritionist admits that she likes Jamie's food better. Then who are she (and the principal and the lunch ladies) afraid of? Like most adults in the U.S., they are terrifed of displeasing the children. So are the parents, who will much more likely take the school to task if the children complain about the lunchroom food, than they will over whether or not the child is learning to read and write.

Finally, the knife and fork incident. The school staff actually speak as though they believe that children are developmentally unable to eat with anything other than their fingers and a spoon until they are at least twelve years old. This is so symptomatic of the dumbing-down of American children, that I have a hard time saying anything about it calmly. As Jamie put it, it is hard to conceive that the same nation that put a man on the moon feels it is impossible to teach children to eat correctly with silverware.

To the principal's credit, he watches Jamie patiently teaching the children to hold the fork and slice with the knife, and eventually he jumps in and begins doing likewise. In a later interview, he humbly admits, "I saw Jamie doing this, and realized I could be doing it, too." Bless this humble man's heart. What is it in the professional preparation of teachers and school adminsitrators that made him think his job was anything other than teaching to the obvious need sitting right in front of him?

And one gratuitous aside: Those of us who promote school choice over the favored status of government-sponsored secular naturalism are often accused of creating a rhetoric which harms votes for more money for public schools. It is very apparent in this episode that Central City Elementary School is well-equipped (the kitchen has every conceivable appliance), well-staffed (the kindergarten teacher has an aide), and the classrooms are well stocked and attractive. All this in spite of the fact that it is in an older building and Huntington is not a wealthy town. But those are the things that money can buy. What money isn't changing is academic success. And transcendent truth isn't even on the radar screen. More money will not cure these ills.

Christian culture

One of the early interviews in the episode shows Jamie visiting with a Christian minister who is the first Huntingtonian who appears to be sympthetic toward Oliver's mission. He is also shown preaching to his congregation about the high incidence of early death in the church and in the community at large.

A particularly humorous moment comes near the beginning of the episode when Jamie says "May the Man Upstairs judge me if I'm not right about this." The sardonic lunchroom lady Alice, who is in serious need of some sanctification herself, nods knowingly and says, "He will, Jamie."

In one scene at the home of the Edwards, Jamie persuades Mrs. Edwards to bury her "Fry-Daddy" (deep fat fryer) in the back yard. Before filling in the hole, Jamie says, "I know you're a woman of faith, so why don't you say a prayer over this burial." Rather than following Jamie's tongue-in-cheek parody of a funeral, Mrs. Edwards actually prays an earnest, heartfelt prayer for her family. Jamie is clearly impressed with her sincerity.

My commentary:

It should not surprise us that a person Jamie's age from highly secular post-Christian England would refer to God as "the Man Upstairs." It may be that someone briefed him that the is headed into the heart of the Bible belt and that he should frequently make gratuitous references to Deity.

What is disarming is that the camera can't make the faith of these people look ludicrous. The pastor comes across as affable and well-educated, and Mrs. Edwards, albeit hapless in taking care of her family, is nevertheless sincerely God-fearing.

We should be thankful for this fair representation of Christianity.

And we should be concerned that these good Christians, just as ourselves, are not always consistent in integrating the implications of their faith into their daily lives.