More tears were shed in the latest episode of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Adults, children, single fathers -- everyone seemed to tear up once they realized the impact of food choices on the health of their loved ones.
One person who didn't shed a tear -- Superintendent Ramon Cortines, who told Jamie why he wasn't allowed in LAUSD schools. "You and your company have attempted to make the school district a stage," Cortines says. (See more in the video above.)
Blocked now from LAUSD schools as well as West Adams Preparatory High School, what will Jamie do?
In this episode, you see more of what's driving Jamie. He meets a single father of two boys, ages 14 and 10. Denny Barrett admits that he does not know how to cook and relies on fast food to feed his kids. Jamie says that "the hideous fast-food crap has to stop." Jamie and the family pile into the car and head to a local drive-through. Instead of getting their order, they are handed an entire month's worth of fast food. Totally disgusting, everyone agrees, but when they get back from the drive-through, they are even more grossed out. Their house is full of a year's worth of fast food -- burgers, hot dogs, and fries everywhere. Seeing is believing for the Barretts, and then under Jamie's supervision, the kids cook Dad dinner.
Jamie makes even more of his food lessons literal when he teaches a class and lets each student pick a snack. The choices are pizza slices, chocolate bars, oranges, and soda (what Jamie calls "fizzy pop"). Then it's off to the track as the kids walk laps according to the snack they chose. (Those poor chocolate-bar kids...)
Later, Jamie gives a heartbreaker of a social studies class in which he has adults with serious diet-related health problems come in and talk to students directly. His idea is for the teenagers to feel like their future is speaking to them. What he doesn't count on is how quickly the tears fall as students are impacted by the adults' stories. Some are reminded of their own family members who already have some of the health problems that the adults mention.
"I will never forget that class," Jamie says.
At the end of the episode, Jamie gets the news that he has been blocked yet again. He can no longer even teach his culinary classes at West Adams. The huge (Jamie would say "massive") effort to thwart him just seems to rev him up, and he announces that he is "going guerrilla." He will be relocating his food revolution kitchen to a building walking distance from the school. And he seems pretty excited about it. He says, "They might own this school, but they don't own these kids, and they don't own me."
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