"jamie oliver" news and stories

Jamie Oliver got a big glimmer of hope last night. Food Revolution may have been bumped on the tube in favor of a two-hour Dancing With The Stars episode, but Oliver appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! with big news that more than makes up for the scheduling snafu (and no worries, Revolution returns next Tuesday). The news? The Los Angeles United School District (LAUSD) has hired a new superintendent, and unlike the last guy, he's on Jamie's side.

Superintendent John Deasy joined Oliver on Kimmel to announce that he'll be pushing a ban on flavored milk in LAUSD schools, which is a major goal of Oliver's. Why? Because, as Oliver reiterated to the studio audience: "There's more sugar per ounce in flavored milk than there is in a can of soda." About 80 percent of kids get free or reduced-priced milk, he explains, and 75 percent of the milk is flavored. So most kids end up drinking the sugar-packed beverage twice a day, every day that they're in school. "And then you worry about diabetes?" he asks.

Aw shucks. Jamie Oliver's much awaited Food Revolution LA-style sure got off to a rough start. Especially for a guy armed with a simple question: Why can't we do better when it comes to school lunches for our kids?

Before the show even gets underway, Jamie lets us in on a big problem -- the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has refused to give him access to schools. He's been denied.

"They will not let me into any school," says Oliver. "That means war."

So starts the famous chef's familiar drumbeat. He takes to the airways on co-producer Ryan Seacrest's radio program and eventually welcomes a crowd of parents and kids to Jamie's LA Kitchen where they unload gobs of unappetizing, highly processed, plastic wrapped meals culled from their own schools.

"It's worse than anything I had seen before. This is not reality TV. It's a campaign. Will you help me?" he says.

Season 2 of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution premieres Tuesday night at 8pm on ABC and from the looks of it, Oliver hasn't had an easy time convincing the 11 million residents of Los Angeles to improve their eating habits. In addition to being barred from entering L.A. public schools, Oliver has to deal with issues unique to such a large urban area -- such as the fact that it's easier to obtain "a gun, crack, or a prostitute" than a tomato in certain L.A. neighborhoods. Based on the preview clip below, the crusade in Los Angeles might make Oliver's struggles in Huntington, West Virginia (the location of season 1) look like child's play.

It's hard not to support Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Yeah, it's a reality show and all, but his motive seems pure: Get people off processed junk and teach them how to cook.

For the ABC show's second season, he's taking on Los Angeles, a city that hides its addiction to burgers and donuts behind a glam Hollywood facade. The editors of YumSugar sat down with Oliver recently to get the skinny on his new season. Find out why he thinks supermarkets should be giving schools 30K a year, and what happened this season that sent four people to the hospital.

Read the full story at YumSugar.com

The one-man foodie phenom Jamie Oliver is taking his revolution on the road, and we're not talking about traveling in a ramshackle Winnebago with a shoebox-sized kitchen sink, thank you very much. No sir, behold the food truck to beat all food trucks.

Call it "Pimp My Ride" for the farmer's market crowd.

The tricked-out 18-wheeler is equipped with a full-fledged Food-Network-worthy expo kitchen and expands laterally to create eight separate cooking stations. There's also some sort of inflatable white "bandshell" attachment that apparently can be used to lead the masses in a chant of "cauliflower to the people!"