Fresher food!

‘Fresher food for freshers: Jamie Oliver’s dinner lady cooks for students’- Ann Lipsett, guardian.co.uk, 01/10/08

 Jamie Oliver has been reported in the guardian website a couple of times this week.

This article reported on his right-hand woman, Nora Sands, the dinner lady from Jamie’s School Dinners. The article focuses on her recent cooking demonstration at the University of Hull, teaching students how to cook quick, simple, healthy meals on a budget.

I think this is a good idea in promoting healthy cooking. Students are arriving at universities not knowing how to cook, or can’t be bothered to, and are relying on baked beans and toast, and kebab takeaways.

However, I don’t see many students will continue to cook for themselves after a period of time. It may be fun at the beginning, but they’ll probably feel they can’t be bothered to cook after a few weeks…or days. I wonder how many students attended the event?

I have a younger sister who has just started her first year in university, living away from home in halls. Apparently her knew accommodation does not have a kitchen since it is catered…Lord knows what she’s eating!

 

Most of the article included quotes from Nora Sands, showing how compassionate she is about food. Many parents who have read the article will probably wish that Nora will visit their own children’s universities and teach them how to cook as well.

The article includes a picture at the top of Nora and students enjoying cooking, hinting a positive outlook on Britain’s healthy eating campaign. It was easy to follow, and many people would remember their student dietary life whilst reading it. No negative comments or debates were made about the demonstration in the article, enforcing a positive view of the story.

The article included words highlighted in blue which when clicked, linked onto other related websites/articles; a feature only available on the web. By doing so, it diverts traffic on to other sites/ articles on the guardian website, as well as allowing readers to refer to other items giving them more understanding. The article ends by inviting readers to share their favourite student recipes with other readers, making the guardian page a friendly environment where Internet users can interact. As you can see by the comment posted afterwards by a reader, the article brings up emotions and memories of readers and allows them share with others.

The ‘Health & wellbeing’ section of the guardian site introduces the article on the page with a picture of a laughing Nora, and a brief introductory to the article, attracting users’ attention to read the story. A couple of stories relating to Jamie Oliver has been published recently, thus generating a large number of readers interested in Jamie Oliver or his campaign to visit the guardian site.

 

 

Oliver!

‘Britain on a plate’- Felicity Lawrence, guardian.co.uk, 01/10/08

Relating to Jamie Oliver’s new TV series again, this article explains that the diet of a person depends on class, i.e. the poorer you are, the more you will try and fill yourself up with cheap food. It gives us a deeper understanding about why Britain’s problem exists.

‘ What may seem ignorant choices to others are in fact quite rational. Lobstein has calculated the cost of 100 calories of food energy from different types of food. The cheapest way to get your 100 calories is to buy fats, processed starches and sugars. A hundred calories of broccoli costs 51p, but 100 calories of frozen chips only cost 2p.’

 

The article starts by giving an insight to the dietary lives of people featured on the TV series, and talks about the history of the relationship between diet and social class. I was surprised to find that the working class’s diet of 1930s sounded healthier than of today’s… “The basis of their diet is white bread and margarine, corned beef, sugared tea and potatoes”.

The article gives facts and quotes from various sources, describing a grave situation. Although the article starts with a black and white picture at the top that attracts attention, the article is very long and many people will choose not to bother reading all of it. The fact that the picture is in black and white somehow adds to the negative outlook of our diets.                                                   

As well as Jamie Oliver, we the readers realise how ignorant we were about the reason of the present day situation.

The article has links on to the guardian food blog, inviting us to join the debate.

Ironically, the advert placed next to the article at the time I read it, was a McDonald’s one, although the burger looked somehow healthy.

The article was listed on the top of the Food and drink section of the Lifestyle page, thus exposing it to a large audience.