After the Jamie Oliver project finished filming in Huntington and work on
the yet-to-be released reality show wrapped up, community efforts to improve
the eating habits of Huntington
residents started ramping up.
Now nine different schools in the county have
changed the school menus and are making made from scratch meals. The goal is to
get all 26 schools in the county to change the menus by the end of the year.
Rhonda McCoy is the Food Services Director for the
county school system.
“So what we’re doing is switching off any
processed food we have in our lunch program, so that we have fresh meat,
vegetables and fruits and then the cooks will be preparing all of those meals
from scratch,” McCoy said.
William Smith is Cabell County schools superintendent. He says at first celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s message
was tough to hear, especially since it came from someone who’s not from the
area.
“Initially we were somewhat reluctant like anyone
else would be because we didn’t know what was going to happen, but after we got
involved we began to see it really wasn’t something to trash the city of Huntington or the area,
but actually to start the momentum to improve,” Smith said.
Smith says in order for Oliver’s idea of cooking
from scratch with fresh food to catch on nationally, the government will have
to help.
“I think that the discussion at the national level
is going to be very important in getting those things changed so schools can
perhaps buy from local vendors when it’s appropriate or when it’s available at
a price we can afford, if we can get the national resources of food to change
what they’re doing so that it will be affordable,” Smith said.
McCoy says chefs have trained cooks at each of the
nine schools on preparing home cooked meals that are healthier. She said at
first they were hesitant to cook from scratch for that many people.
“They do seem to be doing a very good job with it,
you know they’re kind of thinking before it rolls out in their school that
maybe they can’t do it, but once the chefs have been there and they’ve seen
what it is that they do, they’ve been able to do it so far. They’ve been pretty
successful,” McCoy said.
McCoy says there are several regular items on
their menu that they can make healthy.
“For instance instead of Pizza we have a recipe
that’s called Pizza noodles and it’s got like a spaghetti noodle in it with a
sauce that’s a little pizza flavored. We have a chicken cheese quesadilla that’s
a really good product,” McCoy said.
Jedd Flowers is with the Cabell Board of Education.
He says the next step is to bring more schools into the program. But he also
expects a lot of media attention when Jamie Oliver’s show about Huntington debuts in March.
“We are expecting huge national and international
press on this story and Cabell County is going to really be out there in the
spotlight and on the forefront and the pressure is on now,” Flowers said.
The Jamie Oliver Food Revolution will air on ABC
March 26, 2010.