Jamie's Food Revolution: LA's Schools Board doesn't play ball

Jamie recruited a small army of kids on last night’s episode of the Food Revolution, in an attempt to get the LA Schools District on board, and allow him to make changes to school meals.

But despite making some allies, he was still refused entry to the city’s elementary schools. That is until he found a loophole in the system, a school owned by the LAUSD but run by contractors LMA, who welcomed him to the school, but warned him they needed results as going against the board could mean the school looses funding and they loose their jobs.

To keep the LAUSD sweet, the school made Jamie pose as a cookery teacher, giving him the chance to teach the children, half of which are obese, about the importance of eating good food. He shown a small group who take culinary skills how to make burritos and learnt that most of them fear becoming ill from being overweight. One girl, Sophia, told Jamie how her 13-year-old sister and parents have type 2 diabetes, and she worries she is next. Jamie’s plan- to get the group to act as his crusaders and come up with a healthy alternative to school meals.

However, the LAUSD got wind of his ideas and forbid him from talking to any of the children about school meals. Even peering through the window into the cafeteria Jamie got a telling off. ‘In the land of the free I can’t talk to children about the food they eat everyday. It makes me angry, and as Americans it should make you furious’, said Jamie.

The celeb chef’s luck didn’t improve when he made a return visit to see Deano, who runs a fast food restaurant. Jamie told the owner that he could double his takings, and asked for full control of the menu for two weeks.

‘Two weeks is too long’, claimed Deano. ‘I have a wife and kids. I’m concerned because you are English and wasn’t born in America. You don’t know what a milkshake is.’ Deano’s comment referred to last week when the chef adapted his milkshakes to make them healthier using yoghurt instead of ice-cream and fresh fruit instead of syrup, a drink which the fast food owner said was more like a smoothie.

In the end Deano agreed with Jamie to split the menu in half, the old originals vs Jamie’s three new healthier burgers with less than half the calories, and his lighter milkshake. All appeared to be going well, with the customers giving Jamie’s burger the thumbs up, until the chef posed as a customer and ordered a shake from the drive through, only to see Deano add ice-cream and syrup to his healthy milkshake.

‘I thought it needed something’, was Deano’s excuse.

And it seems next week Jamie is in for an even tougher time. Will the chef ever get a break?

Jamie's Food Revolution:the chef's celeb status fails him in LA

Jamie’s likability and Essex slang just doesn’t translate in LA, as shown on the first of last night’s Jamie's Food Revolution, LA on CH4. In a desperate attempt to fit in, Jamie even attempted some American slang and vocabulary, using phrases such as ‘Gee Whizz’ and calling burgers patties and referring to data as dat a.

The naked chef, who has made it his life’s mission to make school meals across the globe healthier, came up against a brick wall of authority0the LA Schools District board, who refused to grant him permission to observe food practices in all of the city’s schools.

His back up plan was to round up the parents for support by inviting them to his kitchen, where he revealed the gruesome truth about the meat, if you can call it that, used in school dishes. Meat that is used to make dog food, and which butchers pay to be taken away, and treated with ammonia to kill salmonella. A process only used in America!

His demo may have had an impact on the mums and dads, but the board still refused to allow him access to the schools. And at a board meeting Jamie, who was promised a slot with the head of food, was palmed off with his communications manager, who told him to send an email, and basically jump through many hoops.

No problem, the chef had another trick up his sleeves, trying to convince the owner of an  independent burger joint to swap his poor quality ‘patties’ for the real deal, Angus beef, and milkshakes made from real fruit and yoghurt rather than a syrup substitute.

‘It’s nice’, said owner Deano, when he tried the shake, ‘but not a real milkshake without ice-cream, more like a smoothie.’

And the burger? Deano admitted it was juicer, but at double the price not profitable.

The final nail in the coffin for Jamie, who brought his whole family over to the States, was when only 15 parents turned up to his visual lecture on the evils of giving children flavoured milk in schools. To prove his point, he filled a US school bus with 57 tonnes of sugar (see pic), the amount of sugar from a week’s worth of milk served. But still no word from the board.

‘Ive never had an institution that has shut us down like this’, said Jamie. ‘We’re just dreading water and getting nowhere. It’s a great show on hoe people don’t give a *@!!@***. ‘Maybe LA was a mistake’, admits the chef.