The Wrong Starting Point

The young British chef, Jamie Oliver, was awarded the TED Prize this year, $100,000, to use in implementing his wish: "I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity."

It's a noble goal and he gave an emotional talk. But it had too much of the liberal, feel-good, the-government-and-schools-should-be-doing-more approach to suit me. Take the short video of him in an American grammar school classroom where the students (second graders?) couldn't identify the most common vegetables he showed them. Whose fault is that? The school's?

And I thought about my own young granddaughters who, I believe, could have identified most, if not all, of the veggies. Why? Because they learned it at home from parents who have involved them in growing food in their own backyard garden. The liberal solution for everything is for public, tax-payer funded entities to solve the most basic of life's problems—in this case, learning about healthful relationships with food. Where are the parents in this equation who are responsible for teaching children what's right and responsible? Yes, schools should do their part by serving healthy food, as should government by not subsidizing unhealthy approaches to food like our government does. But teaching about fundamental issues of life—like food—ought to begin in the home.

See what you think: