A Gift for Jamie Oliver

I had a wonderful experience last week. Through a series of fortunate events I was able to gift ‘The Adventures of William Brambleberry: Aviator Mouse,‘ directly into the hands of one of my all time heroes.

Apart from all the success he’s had with his cooking shows and books, Jamie Oliver is a wonderful person. He has helped to revive home cooking and home cooked meals. He is a wonderful role model: showing men how to be warm, loving and connected Dads, and husbands; showing parents the joy of meals shared with loved ones, establishing and maintaining family traditions, and the importance of healthy, wholesome food.

Jamie established a program to help disadvantaged youth grow their confidence and skills as chef’s apprentices. He is also a passionate and effective advocate for health and nutrition, especially the health of our kids. He has campaigned tirelessly to educate us about the food industry and to change the way we and our society eats, in order to combat obesity and the scourge of lifestyle diseases.

Jamie has started a Food Revolution and here are some of the amazing programmes that he and his Jamie Oliver Foundation have established:

• Fifteen Apprentice Program – Fifteen is a restaurant group that uses the magic of food to give unemployed young people the chance to have a better future. Profits from each restaurant are reinvested back into individual registered charities that fund the Fifteen’s Apprentice Program. The journey of the first 15 apprentices is documented in the TV series Jamie’s Kitchen followed by Jamie’s Kitchen Australia.
• Feed Me Better – When Jamie set up the Fifteen Foundation to train young disadvantaged people for the restaurant trade, he found many of the new recruits had little to no knowledge about food. Why? Because children no longer learn about food at school. Jamie wanted to change this. FMB and the TV series Jamie’s School Dinners is the result.
• Jamie’s Ministry of Food and Ministry of Food Australia – Established to keep cooking skills alive by educating people to cook from scratch, turning fresh ingredients into meals when they’re in season, at their best and at their cheapest.
• The Good Foundation – Established to lead the transformation of Australia’s food habits through advocacy, program delivery and collaboration to maximise the health, wellbeing and productivity of communities.
• Jamie’s Kitchen Garden Project – Provides an online range of beautiful digital resources which are designed to provide teaching staff with everything they need to help children learn how to grow food from seed and to cook nutritious meals from scratch.
• Jamie’s Childhood Obesity Strategy – During his TV series Sugar Rush, Jamie educated his audience about the huge impact sugar has on obesity, particularly childhood obesity. He revealed how much influence the sugar industry lobbyists have on Government policy, and he has lobbied the UK Government tirelessly to impose a tax on sugary drinks in order to reduce the amount of sugar consumed by children in the UK.
• Sugar Smart UK – New grassroots campaign to increase awareness of and reduce sugar consumption across all age groups and communities in the UK.

Jamie has done all this through sheer hard work, his determination, his passion and his vision, despite having come from a working class background without the priviledge of wealth, and struggling through school with severe dyslexia.

Although he in no way has endorsed ‘The Adventures of William Bralmbleberry: Aviator Mouse,’ I am full of happiness that he has received my small token of appreciation to thank him for all of his work.

Thank you Jamie!