With or without LAUSD, 'Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution' returns for a second season

Los Angeles Unified School District might have suspended Jamie Oliver from its schools, but that didn't stop his effort to eliminate greasy pizza and fried treats from the mouths of Los Angeles' youth.

"Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" returns with a second season in April after some roadblocks. Actually, just one big one: LAUSD.

The nation's second-largest school district barred all filming of reality shows in district schools while the celebrity chef was filming at West Adams Preparatory High School in central Los Angeles in early February.

Soon after the suspension, Oliver expressed his frustration with district officials in a speech at the UCLA School of Public Health:

"My filming permit was terminated because I can't promise that the LAUSD [will] look good," he said, according to a transcript of his speech. "They fail to see me as a positive, and they fail to see the TV as an incredible way to spread the word, to inspire people, to inform parents, to see other teachers doing pioneering things."

But a revolution doesn't come easy, right? To salvage his quest for healthy eating, during the second season, he opens a kitchen in Westwood, stages a demonstration and even attempts to create a healthy fast-food menu in a local drive-through restaurant.

Was it enough?

The second season of "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" will premiere April 12 on ABC.

-- Yvonne Villarreal
twitter.com/villarrealy

Photo: A scene from "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution." Credit: ABC

Comments

[jerry]

What the kids are eating at lunch are not making them fat. Teach the communities to feed their kids home cooked foods, not fast food and all the other crap these kids are eating the other 11 meals per week (10 meals at school and 11 meals at home). While we can teach out children to make the right choices when selecting lunch items, lead by example by serving fresh food at home as well.

[Michael]

Junk food is so convenient. It's faster, cheaper, and tastier(who wouldn't love it with all that salt and fat in it?). The only problem is that we are having it 6 days a week. It's basically the new smoking. Don't get me wrong. I do love fast food. But now it has many people addicted to it. I hope that some of the changes he made in Britain can be made here too.

[Paola]

It's unfortunate that the LAUSD didn't maximize the opportunity to look like they even care about our health. Instead Ramon Cortines and Dennis Barret shuts the Food Revolution out and steps on any option that the people from LA have the right to exercise. At the end of the day it is LA that suffers the political decisions made by these over paid murderers, who are killing our children slowly an sublty with over processed food. Truly, their ego and power blinded them from at least trying to look good in front of LA. I am so disappointed as a citizen and latina.

[Sarge Madden]

When my 3 kids went to school they always went to what I call the junk food line cause the food they were served was awful so why not go for the candy bars and greasy pizza instead of there hamburgers and nasty pasta we owe it to Jamie for even giving a hoot about our children instead of just taking cart of his and I bet there more healthier than ours

[Deborah]

Personally I'd like to thank Jamie Oliver for voicing what so many of us have been complaining about for years and we have gotten no where.

LAUSD school board comes off really badly in this and, honestly, they should all be removed from office if they are so ashamed of what goes on in their cafeterias that they can't open up to inspection. What is the "teachable moment" here? It's a joke! This is as bad as teachers telling their kids to not complain to any visitors during accreditation. If LAUSD's board doesn't "get" that what a child eats affects her ability to listen and learn during the course of a school day, then we have serious problems that go beyond crappy food. We have a board that is more concerned about their reputation than the people they are supposed to be protecting.

I am an LAUSD parent. Two years ago my son went to a middle school in the Valley with almost 2,800 students who all converged to an outside eating area (in the rain with little cover and not enough tables). If you were in the last few hundred to get food you were out of luck because you then only had 5-10 minutes to eat and get back to your next class. Older kids would push out the 6th graders. There was no adult supervision (which I know because I went on campus one day looking for my son and was stunned to see thousands of kids wandering around with not one adult present).

The food was horrible so he brought lunch from home every day along with water (the water fountains were also not working.) This year he's in a charter high school that gets funding from various sources and you know what? The food is "great!". He told me he went back for the salad several times because it was so good.