"Sadly, in the next 18 minutes, when I do our chat, four americans will be dead for the food they eat."
This, is how Jamie Oliver opened his presentation at this year's TED in February 2010. In his slightly more than 20 minutes talk, the English chef now residing in the US to reboot America's diet, shocked the audience several times, reflecting on one of the biggest issues in the United States and worldwide, obesity. According to his charts, deaths caused by fat-related illnesses are the most probable causes of death in the States, while homicide is standing right at the bottom, claiming significantly lower percentage from the number of deceases per year, yet we are paying much more attention to their prevention.
During the speech, we are made aware of the fact, that students leaving high school in the US aren't even able to turn on an oven, since they don't receive proper education on food either in the school or at home. The fact is, that most Americans are so addicted and got used to the comfort and the easiness of fast food, that they don't cook at home, even if raising children. With all the famous and local food brands offering take out and home delivery services, everything is set for them to die early in heart attack, while gobbling chicken wings from KFC and watching Oprah. Welcome to the developed world!
(Video available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIwrV5e6fMY )
I’ve seen the speech, I think it is fantastic but sadly he isn’t being received all that well in the US: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1260052/Jamie-Oliver-reduced-tears-US-rejects-healthy-eating-advice.html
Thank you Lara for the link, I wasn’t aware of the outcome of his efforts. I read the comments on TED’s site under the video, and sadly the same attitude appeared there. Rejection. People don’t know why an Englishman is so interested in America’s health problems, and they also don’t know how on Earth could eating vegetables, and cooking for 30-40 minutes every day be that fun. They don’t know, because they’ve never seen it. Never seen from the parents, never seen on telly, and since America is one of the most addicted countries to TV, what’s not on TV, that doesn’t exist for them. And examples to healthy diet are the rarest thing to appear on TV.
Great writing! I like your style - short but full of energy. Can you embed the video in this post? It would be great to have it here.
@Ruth Thank you very much!
I tried to embed the video, but I simply couldn’t make it work. I used the dedicated button, and I also pasted the code directly into the writing field, but all I got was html source code.
Ted is amazing! And Jamie Oliver’s piece is certainly worth watching. Check out Ted.com for more. Thanks Oskar.