Jamie's Food Revolution LA-the chef refuses to give in

Jamie fought back against the LAUSD last night by moving his kitchen outside Wesr Adams’ school after his filming permit expired.

He told the students on his last visit them and their families are welcome to come to his kitchen to learn about healthy food and how to cook. They can’t stop me on my own premises out of school time, he reminded them.

The naked chef also worked to convince Mike, who is part of the team that runs West Adams’ school, to become independent of the LAUSD and go it alone like one school an hour and a half’s drive away in Santa Barbara. The only problem is budgets, confessed Mike on a visit to the school. But the chef proved that healthy food costs can be kept to a minimum as the Santa Barbara institution have 70 per cent of pupils on free school meals and still make a profit by growing their own fruit and vegetables. Pupils even said they liked their school’s meals and marked them 10/10.

Mike agreed to go ahead with the changes, starting with introducing a vegetable bed into his school, something Jamie was not allowed to help with having been disallowed from stepping onto the school’s grounds.

During the programme, the chef also revisited the family he helped in last week’s show, and received an award from UCLA for ‘Public Health Champion.’

‘This year I haven’t errant it yet’, he said in his thank you speech. ‘It’s been the hardest month of my whole career.’

‘The only way brilliant change can happen is if all areas come together at the same time and invest in making social health change.’

However, next week it looks like Jamie could get his wish, as the newly appointed LAUSD superintendent agrees to a meeting and suggests changing (food) policy in schools.

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?