Eating healthily can be child’s play
“EVERY time you eat McDonald’s, it’s like drinking a cup of poison,” youngsters at a Joburg primary school were told by Shane Smith, Jamie’s Italian restaurant head chef.
The children, aged 8 and 9, from Trinity House in Roodepoort, nodded in agreement as they were educated on the benefits of a healthy diet.
Clad in aprons and chef hats over their tiny uniforms, they enthusiastically responded to Smith’s questions on the nutritional value of various foods.
“If you eat Coco Pops every day you will get fat,” one girl remarked to cheers from her peers.
With the guidance of Smith, they then marked food items listed in a notebook provided by the Melrose Arch, Joburg, restaurant.
It included carrots, which the chef informed, were suitable for daily consumption, tomatoes which could be eaten occasionally and Oros juice, which he urged the youngsters to avoid.
He told them sugar was harmful to their health and they should instead opt for a balanced diet which included healthy carbohydrates and fats, as well as protein and fruits and vegetables.
This programme was part of legendary celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution which involves him visiting schools around the world to educate pupils on healthy eating.
Smith said Oliver was passionate about youngsters eating healthily and this month, Jamie’s Italian would be spreading the Food Revolution message.
This would involve changing the laws, policies, practices, minds and opinions in support of better food for kids.
The urgent need for such initiatives comes as recent statistics showed at least 40 million children under the age of 5 were obese throughout the world.
Although this is the first time Oliver’s Food Revolution was preached in South Africa, Smith said plans were in place to provide nutritional education to schools across the country, especially in underprivileged areas.
He told The Saturday Star that the most important thing for children and their parents to remember was to avoid sugar at all costs.
He also bust the myth that healthy food was unaffordable.
“If you go to the top end store and buy organic apples, they will be more expensive but if your budget doesn’t allow that, go to your local market and buy two or three apples that you need instead of buying things that go to waste.”
He said R200 was enough to provide a healthy meal for a family of five. “It’s easy to say healthy food is unaffordable but at the end of the day you go buy takeaways, which essentially poison your body and you are also busting your budget without even knowing it.”
Smith said that preparing balanced meals in advance and getting the proportions right was also an essential way to keep the entire family health.
“The most important thing in your life is your life itself,” he said.
“‘Your health is everything and without it you can’t leave a legacy on this Earth.”