March 29 2015 will be a day in my life I Never.Ever.Forget.
I went to see the brilliant, inspirational Jamie Oliver sharing his passion at the Opera House. Jamie LIVE at the Opera House people! I seriously was so excited I had tears in my eyes when he came on stage. Sorry about the lack of photo’s but I was transfixed – watching Jamie on stage was too interesting to be watching it through a camera.
Jamie is here revving us up for Food Revolution Day (mark May 15th in your diary now), and to encourage us all to sign his petition to make Food Education compulsory at ALL schools for ALL kids around the WORLD.
Jamie’s going to take the petition to the G20 summit and get all governments to agree to food education for kids. You know how passionate I am about educating kids about food, but I am a very tiny fry next to Jamie. He has the street cred, profile and passion to really make this happen. Please, please sign the petition and help turn around the health of our children’s generation. If we don’t act now, the health of our children’s generation will continue to spiral downwards. Don’t let them be the first generation in hundreds of years to have a shorter life expectancy than us, their parents. Sign it, Share it!
Ok so now I have had my rant about children’s health and urged you to sign Jamie’s petition, I wanted to share with you some of Jamie’s words. I’ve also added my thoughts about the simple things you can do – starting now!
Jamie – Public Health has never been worse. The world has changed around us. We are buying less sugar, but eating more.
What can you do?
Take a look at 3 packaged items your family regularly eats, including your breakfast cereals. Look at the ingredients and work out if these packaged items are adding to or taking away from family’s health. If taking away from your health, then make a commitment to crowd these items out and add in better quality foods. Some things to ask yourself are:
- Where is sugar listed in the ingredients (the closer to the front of the ingredient list, the more of it is in there)?
- How many teaspoons are in it? (4g = 1 tspn). World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) new guidelines are adults should not have more than 6 tspns of sugar a day, and children 3.
- Watch out for the different names of sugar (there’s 60 different names for sugar now. Read this article from That Sugar Film for help.)
- Look out for additives and preservatives. Know what #’s to steer clear of. Do yourself a favour and buy the Chemical Maze app. (I’ve added this in because additives and preservatives can have such a profound impact on our children’s health).
Jamie – Breakfast cereals and soft drinks (including energy drinks) are the enemy
What you can do?
Seriously most breakfast cereals are laden with sugar. You really need to check the label and especially the serving size. Most serving sizes wouldn’t satisfy my 4yo. If your family have cereal every day or most days:
- choose 1 day a week to make a non-cereal day, and make pancakes, scrambled eggs, poached eggs, anything with eggs (see next Jamie point). Then gradually increase this up to two days and so on.
- choose a cereal which has lower sugar content for your cereal days
- choose water, make smoothies
Jamie – Eggs are the most affordable high health food.
What can you do?
Add more eggs into your life. They are high in protein so help keep tummy’s fuller for longer. There are so many ways to incorporate eggs into your day – here’s the basics but you can add flavours, extra protein, vegies, etc to these too.
- scrambled
- fried
- poached
- omelettes
- pancakes
- muffins
- waffles
Jamie – about kids, it’s not what they don’t like, it’s what DO they like, and what could they like.
What can you do?
One of the biggest issues parents tell me is that they have fussy eaters. It’s a fact, we eat with our eyes first, so many children look at something and say they don’t like it (my 4yo is going through that at breakfast, lunch and dinner at the moment, but he always ends up eating it).
Research shows children need to see and try foods at least 7 to 12 times consistently, to determine if they really don’t like a food.
So my advice is this:
- Get them to identify what they do like from the fruits and vegetables in season, and add loads of these into the foods you eat.
- Then think of all the different ways you can include these. Make it so there’s lots of variety using these.
- Also be persistent and consistent at including other fruits and vegetables which are important. They may not eat these straight away, don’t stress about it but just keep trying. We too often give up before they’ve had a chance to really try it. Remember 7 to 12 times – consistently!
Jamie – Life is too short to not find your swagger otherwise you end up cooking like Gordon (lol)
What can you do?
- Think of cooking real food (fresh ingredients, not packets) as the ultimate act of love for your family.
- Have fun whilst cooking. For me, that’s listening to 80’s music (some of my faves are : walking on sunshine, angel is my centrefold, kids in America, Can’t Touch This, and anything INXS and Prince – as a side note, I now have our 4 & 8 yo requesting Devo Whip It!)
- Get your kids in the kitchen with you. Yes I know, it ends up messy but they buy into what they are involved in. It’s like your team at work. If they are involved, they are more likely to go along with an idea, even if it they really didn’t like it at first.
Jamie – Australia could be a catalyst for Food Revolution Day.
What can you do?
- Mark May 15th in your diary – this is Food Revolution day. Take a look here at how you can get involved.
- Stay tuned because I am cooking up an idea for your healthy lunchboxes for that day!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLLwjQYdUVI&feature=youtu.be
PS. Remember to sign the petition, and share it.