Jamie Oliver’s Double Standard

Jamie Oliver has been harping on and on about the inferiority of our nutrition, especially where school children are concerned. But does he himself live up to the high standards he sets for everyone else?

Jamie Who?

If you don’t know who Mr. Oliver is let it suffice to say that he is an English celebrity chef who practically singlehandedly showed the world that his home nation can cook.

Which I actually didn’t doubt. But England up to that point probably was being harassed like no other nation about the loathsomeness of its cuisine, given its love of oily fish and chips, mint sauces and Yorkshire Pudding. Even us Germans derided them about it and we, with national staples like fried sausage and pork knuckles, surely shouldn’t be throwing stones.

Oliver turned all that around when, after working his way through the ranks of gastronomy, in 1997 was discovered by the BBC, which led to his own television show, cookbooks, restaurants, more television shows and already in 2005 being one of the richest Britons alive.

The Culinary Savio(u)r

As it happens so often with people who have achieved so much, they discover they have a mission to make the world better. Perhaps you simply still have to have a goal in life when you achieved the one called “get rich”.

His is telling everyone how much their nutrition sucks and that the solution are low-calorie meals prepared from unprocessed vegetables and fruits. Appropriately for missionary work, he in the UK started a movement named “Ministry of Food”, while in the US he filled a school bus with white sand, depicting and decrying how much sugar California school children consume per week.

All in all, in the English-speaking world, Oliver these days practically is the moral Damocles sword hanging over your head every time you sit down to eat. Because you surely wouldn’t eat standing, would you? And I haven’t heard that about grubbing grabbing a chicken tikka from around the corner.

Do As I Say, Not As I Eat?

On the other hand, the man himself seems to have a bit of a weight problem. Which is quite human, but may have been caused by no less than the recipes from his own cookbooks, that in the calorie department are consistently worse than ready made dinners from supermarkets. Supermarkets he says he himself never frequents, but at least some years ago had no problem being paid an annual £1.2 million by.

So what really is his message? Eat healthy if you are poor and can’t afford medical bills? Eat as much cream and cheese and saturated fat as you like if you built a culinary empire? I have transcended from mortal nutritional standards and you are not to judge me?

Picture courtesy of “Official LeWEB PHOTOS“.