Chefs should not be teaching nutrition. That is our job. This recent headline makes the case: “Kids Spurn Jamie Oliver’s Healthy Lunches”. You may have noticed, in recent weeks, every time you turn on the TV, Jamie Oliver seems to be on, discussing his mission. It is a noble one and he should be applauded for his understanding that something needs to be done. However, by following a more conventional definition of nutrition, his healthy lunch options may be missing too many of the elements necessary to win over kids.

According to an MSNBC story, nearly 8 out of 10 children were “unhappy” which Jamie’s lunch alternatives and continue to choose the more traditional options such as pizza and chicken nuggets 4:1 over the new options.

Now, looking for the actual “new options” so that we, as holistic nutritionists could access the menu accurately is difficult. It definitely has more servings of fruits and vegetables and less cold cuts and sugary foods. However, Jamie needs more whole food knowledge. A simple example would be his milk offering. He has the schools remove the strawberry and chocolate flavoured milks, in favour of plain milk (which I am sure was not whole milk). The children stopped buying and drinking milk and the school (fearing they were not getting their nutrients) have since have made the flavoured option available again.

Now we will leave the milk as a “needed nutrient” discussion out of this and let’s pretend he also recommended organic milk. He could have easily created healthy, flavoured milks using real strawberries, whole sweeteners and organic cocoa. This would have increased the nutrient-density of the plain milk significantly. Is this not what we would have done? Even though cost is a factor in schools, there are ways around that, too. Whole sweeteners are more expensive but the small amount needed to do the trick, only a few pennies would be added to the cost. Having the drinks “made live” in front of them, perhaps offering choices to go in the milk, would be fun for the kids and teach them about what flavours and combinations they like. I know this does not sound like the type of thing an institutional school cafeteria is likely to do but it certainly is something a place of education should want to do

He is making the classic mistake of the most nutrition advocates, expecting a child just to opt for healthy without trying to match the expected flavor profile the child is used to. He also does not know all the healthy options that we know, that could help to achieve this. A quick viewing of the recipes on Jamie Oliver’s website show consistent use of white flour and white sugar including in his breads so he does not even know how to make all his foods healthy.

So it is not clear what “nutrition” information he understands but it clearly is not ours. So that may be the good news. We know he, like most chefs, can cook but clearly they need our knowledge of all the available healthy foods to make food recipes that are truly healthy and truly delicious. And we could certainly use some of their cooking skills to improve what we do. There is a marriage here that can be very beneficial for both professions.