Food Revolution

I really love my smut reality tv, but it's refreshing when every now and then, one of real impact – like Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution – makes the air waves.

It's a show where world-renowned chef Jamie Oliver attempts to spread a grass-roots movement to change the way Americans eat and even think about food in order to combat obesity, heart disease and diabetes in the USA, "where our children are the first generation NOT expected to to live as long as their parents." Whoah.

My hope is that this show will remind me to consciously, and – more importantly – consistently take a good look at how I eat on a daily basis. I know there are areas where I can improve. For instance, The Fella scolds me for late-night snacking, but I always rationalize and brush it off. Hey, I'm having an apple and cheese, it's not like I'm sitting down to a bowl of ice cream or a giant slice of pizza!

I'm not ready to give up light snacking at night – because I really don't think I'm doing anything so detrimental to my health – but here is my valiant attempt at my own Food Revolution:

(1) Reduce the number of canned meals I eat for lunch.
When it's a stressful week at work, I often feel too tired to pack a proper lunch, so instead, I opt for a quick sodium-filled canned soup, or worse, canned ravioli. I'm embarrassed to admit that there have even been days when I've done double can duty: German potato salad AND soup. But for the most part, I try to bring healthy portions from my Weekend Cooking Marathons, although I am guilty of caving in to canned convenience about 6-8x a month. Jamie Oliver would probably say that's 6-8x too many that I'm NOT eating raw or unprocessed, fresh ingredients or well-rounded meals.

(2) Eat breakfast. Or at least just eat something in the morning.
Probably my worse offense is not eating "the most important meal of the day". (The quotes around this should clue you in on the fact that I'm not sure I buy into this.) I've never eaten breakfast my entire adult life and have gotten along just fine, but recently I feel like I'm hungry all the time, so I'm willing to give this a shot. And since I absolutely despise breakfast foods (except for pancakes, but who has the time to make pancakes every day?), I am looking at this goal as my own personal food challenge: to seek out non-traditional and nutritious foods to start off each morning.

It may take a superstar chef to inspire change, but it has to be your own will to make change happen.