Jamie Oliver Fills A School Bus With 57 Tons Of "Sugar" In Carson + Why L.A. Might Have Been A "Big Mistake"

i like cheese

The LAUSD is so huge and is an entity to be dealt with carefully. Even a celebrity such as Jamie (who is so dead on right with this issue) can make little headway into the maze. Not sure what hope any one parent of a child in the district can achieve. Mobilizing the parents of this district looks painfully difficult. Why is that? Jamie should try a smaller district first. The LAUSD is just insane anyway. Their budgets, management and waste is horrid, their food service dept is probably a reflection of this district. One way to eliminate this problem is quite simple. Eliminate the food services in the school all together and make the parents pack their kids lunches! Kids should be eatting breakfast at home before they leave school in the morning and then brush their teeth before going out the door to start their day. This isn't rocket science. It's basic. There is so much waste in the public school food service program. This needs to be examined more closely. Parents need to go into their schools and see first hand the time and money spent on this program. Get involved parents! Get up earlier and make your kids breakfast, pack their lunches or have the kids get involved with this process. If less money was spent on these programs there would be more money available for educational programs. Duh! Time for parents to get a clue.

If only he had put up an "All You Can Eat" banner, the crowds would have flocked in.

You people all need to get a CLUE!!!!! How many of the 1095 meals per yearare children eating at school? At MOST, 200, possibly 400, if they also eatbreakfast at school. Have you SEEN the portions that are allowed to beserved at school? No one gets fat from example: 5 oven baked chicken nuggets, 1/2cup mashed potatoes, 1/2 cup fruit sauce, 1/2 cup vegetable, 1 whole grain dinner roll and 1 cup milk--even if it is flavored!! Over 2/3 of the people in this country are overweightor obese. Guess who has kids? Not just the very old and very young--it is the PARENTS.Start seeing the light and putting the blame where it belongs--on the backs of theparents who have obesity issues themselves, and/or those who spoil their kids out of guilt, or a refusal to truly parent by setting limits and a providing a good example!!

LAUSD's supposed objections are absurd. This would be a fantastic experience for students pursuing a career in film or TV. Parental consent and releases from students could easily be obtained. Good nutrition also plays a vital role in the quality of education overall.

HelloooNonfat chocolate milk has just 6 grams more sugar than white milk so what's all the fuss about if a kid drinks a carton of nutrient dense chocolate milk at school. Kids could be drinking far worse like the pouch fruit punch with 2% juice in it that they bring in their lunches from home!!

Let's see. Men's Health Magazine listed the "fattest" cities in the nation and Los Angeles was listed as #45 which means there are 44 other cities that are in worse condition than LA. Could it be that some of those cities are experiencing a series of dreadful winter right now and Jamie would prefer to have his family bask in our sunshine rather than experience the bone chilling temperatures of other sections of the nation? Also what’s with the Revolution Kitchen in Westwood? If he really wanted to make a difference seems like he would look to improve food quality in the “poor” sections of town. Maybe that would be an inconvenient drive from his west LA home?

With childhood diabetes and obesity an epidemic in this country, I applaud this "stunt" as Jamie so aptly put it! This is what it means to truly care about children and their parents!! I hope this opens up the conversation so that lasting change can begin. Hats off to you Jamie!

You are amazing. We need you in Hawthorne. My district is a lot smaller then LAUSD and I know they would welcome you! Come check us out.http://www.hawthorne.k12.ca.us

LAUSD CAN PROVIDE BETTER , MORE NUTRITIOUS FOOD FOR HALF THE PRICE THAT IT IS COSTING THEM TO PROVIDE GARBAGE!!! WHY DON'T THEY DO IT??? SAME REASON THEY DONT FIRE BAD TEACHERS - CONTRACTS ! ! ! THE FOOD SUPPLIERS ARE GIVING KICKBACKS TO THE BOARD - IF THEY CHANGE FOOD SUPPLIERS - THEY LOSE THEIR POCKET MONEY....ALL AT THE ENSPENSE OF OUR CHILDREN HEALTH AND OUR TAX DOLLARS!

One more thing. For those of you who are cynics or critics or fans of food in schools...check out what Maryland did a couple of years ago. They let one guy reshape everything the kids eat and now all of the school food in all of the Baltimore schools comes from farms within 100 miles or so. They are eating better, healthier, and the money is staying local.

Jamie,

As someone who works to make a difference for people I can tell you it's hard. It's a slow moving action that takes a lifetime of work. Martin Luther King (to pick a really HUGE person) was arrested 30 times and harassed most of his life while working for civil rights. Most everyone agrees we need to eat better, whole foods, less sugar, etc. So you are on the right track, just keep going, experimenting, figuring it out, as one day you might live to see the day when what we eat, what our children eat, becomes as important as what is on TV and how cool a new war tool is. You are doing GOOD WORK! Perhaps Gods work. Don't give up, persist, and give everything you have to make manifest your vision.

Maybe he should enlist the aid of FLOTUS....she's all about eating right. It is absolutely shameful that the school district turns a deaf ear to what he's saying.

To the critics so negatively insulting Jamie - You perharps just do not give a damn for anybody or anything or you yourself are overweight. I follow Jamies recipes and advise. It's like being on holiday every day - whether at work or at play. My food is always beautiful to look at and tasty to eat.

You go Jamie, don't ever give up. It is people like you that still keep the earth and it's healthy people alive.

Is he sad because this failure means his big $ dreams will not materialize? It is a good career to act goofy in tv shows and rake in the money, be a Ted star ; anyone would be scared if weak ratings are on the horizon when a stunt is ignored.

My god he's an annoying little self-promoter.

LAUSD manages the largest food service operation on the west coast. It feeds breakfast and lunch to a population larger than any of our four smallest states.

Notwithstanding that LAUSD's primary goal is to oversee the the education of our children, it should not have the right to hide its school lunch program behind the school superintendent.

The district loses MILLIONS of dollars because children who are entitled to free breakfast and lunch won't be bothered to go through the cafeteria lines to get food they wont eat, its called "non-participation" The public participation "committee" deciding next year's menu has already concluded its work, guess it takes time to get an order for $70 Million in chicken nuggets!

Why are people so angry? Isn't what Jamie is doing a good thing? At least someone is willing to tackle this issue. I'm glad that he is going to shed some light on the subject. My child attends a LAUSD school and with 700+ kids in his school you would think they'd at least have a stove to cook on. They just have these big huge "microwave" type warmers. Eww.. That's why I pack his lunch almost everyday. I hope we can use this opportunity to start making some changes in our schools. Because, there is no reason chocolate milk should even be on the menu.

Jamie, don't give up! You are doing wonderful work to help expose the malnourishment, obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure that bad food causes. I support your cause!!!

LA is probably the wrong city for this type of approach.

Ollie...move north! LA isn't worth it. Its all glitz..scoring points off one another and litigation. Doing anything with an ethical objective is simply not understood.

Hey Jamie. U B da Man. All activists feel rejection, humiliation, defeat, and a plethora of other emotions. It was a great gesture and serves a "big picture" purpose. Keep it up!

Jamie is not on Food Network at this time, but his shows are on their sister Cooking Channel. I saw his show for the first time 2 days ago and was shocked by the huge amounts of butter and olive oil he uses in his cooking (to go with main-dish fatty sausages and bacons). I came away thinking he's a hypocrite to be criticizing American food as "unhealthy",

Aside from denial and ignorance being cornerstones of American culture, just follow the money to determine who doesn't want Jamie in LA schools. Discover who feels threatened by the truth and you will have your answer.

It's not the schools he needs to get to as much as the central kitchen where the food comes from. The students have brought in their school lunch food to him and have shown what's being served....kids can also take smartphones and cameras into their own schools to capture what's going on. Jamie needs access to the system that creates the food and there's very obvious reasons why that is being blocked.

We went to the first taping in Westwood and I was amazed by his activist approach....LA is not a city that's friendly to activists in general, so I'm not at all surprised that he's getting the cold shoulder.

To write to the LAUSD and ask for better visit http://www.deepawake.com to write to them all and express your opinions to the school board directly.

You gotta love Jamie. My favorite chef. Too bad food network dropped him

Something tells me the Sugar Brigade is behind this deafening silence. EVERYONE knows their corporate interests are at stake if Jamie get in and changes the agenda

I agree with english rose, I am a american and spent a lot of time as a volunteer when my child was in public and charter schools, the majority of children that did bring there own lunch, was prepackaged and straight out of a box or a can, those same kids most likely had something frozen for breakfast dinner, Americas obeseity problem begins and ends withconvenience and lack of exercise

My insurance rates are through the roof. Our national health care situation is broken. Cleaning up our food supplies and making healthy food available to school children is a start. Jamie is right; we must learn how to taste food again. Children do not know the taste of milk when it is full of chocolate and sugar. I am a retired kindergarten teacher. Many mornings a child would guzzle their chocolate milk and throw it up immediately. Schools are just doing what the parents want. Parents are willing to fight you for the right of serving chocolate milk to their child. Good luck Jamie; you will need it!

Where is the mayor? Our wonderful mayor could make sure Jamie could film. I see no reason with the total lack of education going on at LAUSD that he would be such a major disruption.

I agree that there has to be something they don't want viewers to see.

Okay guys I get all the sides of this argument and I agree with Jamie and parents and kid making their own lunches. All you need to know is that some of the schools get the same disgusting yuck that the prisoners do because it's the same commisary that prepares it (with the downed beef and other delights) but what about hospital food??? Talk about something that will make you sick - sicker. I went in for surgery at a top notch hospital in La Jolla, CA with practically a concierge on duty and a piano (really), espresso cart too, and was on a liquid diet for the first couple of days. What was the first thing they urged me to hydrate with on my morphine drip? A juice BOX of hospital brand cranberry sugar drink - no Ocean Spray tartness here, this stuff was seriously high fructose corn syrup as the number one ingredient, red food coloring, and preservatives!!! Even in a semi-coma I could tell this was BAD. They got all huffy when I wouldn't drink it and requested water. When I could finally have solid food they offered me a burger, sloppy joes, or meat loaf - I'm not kidding. I said what about something vegetarian (I'm not vegetarian but didn't want to risk their mystery meat) and they came in with an attitude and some overly steamed brown rice with an anatomically correct zucchini, whole in the middle of my plate that tasted somehow like that disgusting broth which is eau du hospital. I was in there for four days and I could stand to lose some weight so I just kept pounding water but it's ridiculous. I'm a big Jamie fan because he helped me loosen up on my measuring and trust a handful of this and a glug of that and I've never turned back. I always loved to cook but now I improvise and sometimes amazing stuff happens all by itself when I'm "cleaning out the fridge".

i think what Jamie Oliver is trying to do is fantastic! The junk they call food is disgusting. More sugar in an 8 oz. glass of chocolate milk than in soda? Wer'e not giving kids milk- it's liquid candy. He is a hero in my mind.

It's time to stop the food program at schools. If they can't do it right, they shouldn't do it at all. I have the greatest sympathy for children who are unhealthy due to their parent's choices, but I'm done with the "children will suffer if we don't offer them something" argument. It's time adults took responsibility for their own families; if they want to spend their money on Cheez Its, and feed it to their children, it's their choice; for significant change to happen these families will need to see the consequences of a Cheez It diet--many visits to the doctor and many days of missed work due to their children's illness. Harsh, but drastic measures are needed for change.

mu mu muesli loves this stunt because we use NO ADDED SUGAR in our cereal and thanks Jamie for doing such a great job!

Jamie, you should open up a Flickr account and have students submit pictures of their food to it via their cell phones. It would be from the inside out, with the students at the forefront. If the students rally behind you and you create a massive internal movement, the doors will open. TRUST ME.

go Jamie! LA is a tough town...stick in there. stay focused. keep using the media to shine a light. don't get discouraged. remember...its a TOUGH town.

"I'm not even allowed to say the name [for legal reasons]," which contains 26 grams of sugar"

Bullshit. The company that makes the "flavored milk (what is that? Chocolate milk?)" is probably a sponsor of ABC and that outlet doesn't want to anger the company in question. There is no legal exposure for telling the truth.

Come on Oliver, if you were really concerned about children's health rather than using dumbass publicity stunts to hype your crap show then you would inform the public of the corporate entity that is harming the health of students (as well as the pols on the LAUSD who made it possible). This is merely another profile in corporate posturing and the LA Weekly added to this cavalcade of fail by not asking appropriate questions rather then just asking as a glorified echo chamber for what was a corporate press release by other means.

Jamie Oliver, I support you. The reason you are experiencing what you are experiencing is because the LAUSD is completely lame. It's run by the teacher's union and they won't life a finger/change if they don't have to. They are lazy and complacent and most of them probably do not have the intelligence to understand the value of what you are doing.

I'm looking at a can of Coke right now and it has 39 grams of sugar not 26 grams as Jamie says. Not defending flavored milk, just hate it when people exaggerate facts.

Jamie sadly the US doesn't want us healthy ... they want us fat, sick or dead.. Our government allows garbage to fill our grocery stores while they try to shut down clean organic farms who don't grow GMO veggies. The sicker we are the more money our house and senate members make off lobby and kickbacks from the insurance and pharma industries. Is there a country that will take refugees from the US... im ready to leave.

he's just not the right person to promote this stuff. He's not American, and he's not exactly in the best shape either. Does anyone watch the Food network anymore? And does he even have a show anymore?