Jamie takes on unhealthiest town
Chef Jamie Oliver said trying to get the most unhealthy town in America eating properly is the hardest thing he has ever done.
Friday, 13 November 2009
The campaigning cook has previously opened a kitchen run by disadvantaged youths, made school dinners healthier and taught the residents of Rotherham to cook - but Oliver wonders if he has bitten off more than he can chew with his latest challenge.
Oliver, 34, said: "It's the hardest job I've ever done and it's been some of the most emotional work I've ever done. I've got the weirdest job in the world "
His latest campaign will see the Essex-born chef head to Huntingdon, West Virginia - officially the unhealthiest town in America and unenviably tops the national charts for its obesity, heart disease and diabetes rates.
He said: "It's a funny turn of events. I've been trying to get a little food revolution and School Dinners type campaign running in America for the last six years now, ever since the English one.
"So I'm currently working and living in one of the most unhealthy areas of the states. You've seen it before, it's basically what I've been doing in England for the last seven years but in one series."
But Oliver is not sure his American audiences will appreciate his brand of polemical programme making.
"We're just telling a story of where they're at as a country," he said. "They're either going to get it and it's going to cause rifts - good rifts - or they'll just switch off.
"You know what happens in America when the English tell the truth, they're like "What? What did he just say?" So that's all I'm doing, I'm just telling the truth and trying to be a decent human being."
Oliver was speaking on Thursday night at his Big Night Out fundraising feast for his Fifteen Foundation, in east London.
The event was aiming to raise over £200,000 for his cookery training scheme for disadvantaged youngsters and was supported by a host of celebrity chefs, models, actors and singers.
Dinner was prepared by some of Fifteen's recent graduates and Oliver paid tribute to their efforts.
After the meal, Jazz singer Jamie Cullum performed a cover of Beyonce's Single Ladies. Actress Tamzin Outhwaite encouraged dinner guests to make the move to the dancefloor, closely followed by Cullum's fiance Sophie Dahl and Oliver's wife Jools.
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