A mission worth having

In his speech on winning the Ted prize, Jamie Oliver speaks passionately about the obesity epidemic and how he would like to solve the problem by educating people about food. His wish is to create a movement that will inspire people to change the way that they eat, to teach children practical food and cooking skills and provide basic training for parents and professionals.

"Every child should be taught to cook in school, not just talk about nutrition all day. Good food can be made in 15 minutes. This could be the first generation where kids teach their parents" Jamie Oliver

I was lucky enough to be taught about food and how to cook by my mother and grandmother and to have a wealth of fresh food available that we could pick or dig up straight from the garden as my father is a phenomenal gardener, producing a huge array of vegetables and fruits in the garden at home. We were also taught how to cook at primary school, although i think my secondary school did very little, if anything, on that front. One would think that this would be an essential life skill that all schools should teach regardless of what the parents are doing at home. Surely that is what schools should be for- teaching our children essential life skills that will enable them to be healthy and to succeed in life. Somehow i think that is being lost in the drive to get better and better results in subjects that although important in some ways may be missing something in terms of providing us a solid foundation for living in the world and evendare i say it, for getting a good job.

For more details on the movement and how Jamie Oliver plans to go about achieving it see this link: www.tedprize.org/jamie-oliver/