Jamie Oliver is a legend full stop. I have admired Jamie from the beginning and love what he stands for in relation to showing how simple and cost effective it is to eat healthily. Diet related disease is the biggest killer in America. Way above murder and all other deaths we are so paranoid about in the newspapers. Obesity costs 10% of health care bills in America – 150 Billion a year and in 10 years its set to double to 300 billion dollars a year.
Learning about nutrition and the body was one of the greatest things I could have ever done. I studied Nutrition, Sports therapy, massage and personal training in Windsor through the premier training course. It was fascinating to learn how the body functions and how food (our fuel) is utilised around the body. What foods repair, what foods heal, what types are good energy and what types you should just avoid at all costs.
Having that introduction to nutrition then allowed me to explore deeper and start to research what’s contained in the foods I liked and how they benefited me or not. Just by understanding the foreign language labels on the back of food was great. E numbers, Xantham Gum etc etc. It did make me have to stop a lot of what I was eating because what I thought was good for me actually wasn’t.
Now I am vegetarian/vegan and I find even some of the fruit and vegetables we think are healthy actually are not because they’re either not in season or been kept in freezers and travelled for many miles over long periods of time. As soon as a fruit or vegatable is cut open or peeled they lose their nutrients. I eat cleaner and purer now than any time in my life but it’s very hard to make that change. So many people are not aware of what to do and how to start.
I associate eating well with loving yourself. As Gillian McKeith said in her well known books “You are what you eat” It is so true, the food you eat gives you energy and if you eat shit you feel shit and if you eat clean you feel clean. It’s as simple as that. As Jamie says it’s not so simple to wean you off the addiction of food. The salts, fats and sugars are legal drugs numbing us down and making our vessels (bodies) function sluggishly which allows disease to germinate.
This is basic stuff and I, like Jamie have asked the same question many, many times – “why are we not taught about food in schools”. I also ask why are we not taught about the body and money too? Imagine schools that taught you about you and the beautiful body you possess. How it functions externally and internally, muscle movements, insertions and origins. The Circulatory system, lymphatic system and the many functions the liver and brain have. The gut and the brain we have inside our stomachs. How the intestines work and what foods allow constant natural detoxification without having to follow every fad known to man to clean out your bowels. It would be revolutionary and I only hope and support Jamie’s quest to completely transform the absolute madness of what corporations and governments have in place at present and have had in place for 100s of years.
As my brother Lloyd says “you cannot change these systems with the same minds that created them“. I believe Jamie’s mind is the new mind.
I am currently reading a great book called The Thrive Diet by Brendan Brazier and as he says in there, if you just start by adding in the good slowly and consistently, dont rush and over time the good outweighs the bad, there will be no room for the bad foods. It is a process and you cannot expect to do it over night or in 12 weeks like most books promote. It’s a way of life. The old habits that are not working have to be reprogrammed with new habits. Having good habits allows you to function better, perform better and all in all live a healthier happier life.
See Brendans Book on his site: link here - http://www.brendanbrazier.com/book/index.html
“Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food”
Why you should listen to Jamie:
Jamie Oliver has been drawn to the kitchen since he was a child working in his father’s pub-restaurant. He showed not only a precocious culinary talent but also a passion for creating (and talking about) fresh, honest, delicious food. In the past decade, the shaggy-haired “Naked Chef” of late-’90s BBC2 has built a worldwide media conglomerate of TV shows, books, cookware and magazines, all based on a formula of simple, unpretentious food that invites everyone to get busy in the kitchen. And as much as his cooking is generous, so is his business model — his Fifteen Foundation, for instance, trains young chefs from challenged backgrounds to run four of his restaurants.
Now, Oliver is using his fame and charm to bring attention to the changes that Brits and Americans need to make in their lifestyles and diet. Campaigns such as Jamie’s School Dinner, Ministry of Food and Food Revolution USA combine Oliver’s culinary tools, cookbooks and television, with serious activism and community organizing — to create change on both the individual and governmental level.
Enjoy, feel the and see the passion and love he eminates.
If you want to see more information on the corporations and state of our food culture than I thoroughly reccomend watching Food Inc – Oscar nominated Documentary – http://www.foodincmovie.com/ see trailer here.
Thanks for joining me on the sofa
Love and revolution
Simon
