British Chef Opens “Ministry of Food” to Tackle Obesity

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who gained renown with his cooking show “The Naked Chef,” has apparently launched an initiative designed to teach people how to cook in an effort to reduce the incidence of obesity in Great Britain. Starting in a city of 250,000 in northern England with one of the highest rates of obesity in the nation, Oliver’s “Pass it On” campaign will teach eight cooks 10 recipes; they must promise to teach two people who will teach two people and so on, until, in less than six months, the entire city will, in theory, be able to cook. Although the show is being aired only in the UK, a YouTube® clip of the first ten minutes of his opening television show about his new “Ministry of Food” is available for viewing.

Oliver is apparently hoping that people who learn to cook easy, nutritious meals will be less likely to buy high-calorie takeout meals. The program apparently reveals the difficulties that working-class people have preparing their own food—it is evidently easier and more cost effective for them to visit a fast food restaurant in the neighborhood than it is to buy bus tickets and travel to a grocery store with several toddlers in tow to purchase fresh produce. See Weighty Matter Blog, October 14, 2008.