TV Dinner

It’s been a while since I had any food-show stories assigned to write for BuddyTV, but here’s an update I wrote tonight on Hell’s Kitchen’s Gordon Ramsay.  He’s opening a restaurant in the new gajillion-dollar (er – pound) terminal of Heathrow Airport.  It’s called Plane Food, isn’t that cute? 

Speaking of Ramsay, he and another famous British chef, Jamie Oliver, have apparently taken on the cause of free-range chickens.  Oliver just aired a special in the UK called Jamie’s Fowl Dinners, which aimed to show British consumers the poor living (and dying) conditions of chickens raised in an industrial (as opposed to free-range) fashion. 

I’m all for that.  I only had to read was the caption under a pic of Oliver holding a fluffy chick – “Jamie Oliver learns how male chicks, unsuitable for the egg industry, are suffocated and disposed of” (emphasis added) – to get lightheaded. 

I tried watching some documentary once (I think it was The Corporation or McLibel) and as soon as I saw some conveyor belt packed full of baby chicks, I had to turn it off. Don’t know why I have this soft-hearted reaction to the plight of chickens, (I was literally attacked and viciously pecked by one when I was eight!  No fake!!) but something about the conditions under which all factory-farmed animals live makes me feel all devastated.  

So while I am sure that Oliver and Ramsay won’t stop eating them (and I’m not even sure how long I’ll keep NOT eating them), anything that can help improve the conditions they’re living under while they’re, um, living is a good thing in my mind.

Something Oliver is doing that I’m not as enamored with?  He’s going to air the autopsy of a fat person as part of this on-going TV campaign to change people's eating habits.

Okay, trying to help people make positive eating habit changes?  Kudos, bravo, cheers, Jamie Oliver. 

But THIS particular idea?  Beyond stupid.

Per The Grinder, Oliver said, "It’s not pretty but I urge you not to turn away because the fascinating insight into what our diets are doing to our insides could inspire you to change your eating habits in a positive way."

You know what, Not-Fat Person?  Shut up. 

I saw an autopsy when I was I high school. Somehow, this was a prize (?!?) of sorts for the best students in biology in my class.  And the cadaver?  Happened to be a fat person.  Yet, despite having seen a a real dead overweight person autopsied up close and personal, I am still not skinny.  Isn’t that odd?

Overweight people are overweight for many different reasons (I mean, beyond the single reason that anyone would have excess poundage, which is taking in more calories than they are using up).  But A UTTER LACK OF AWARENESS THAT IT’S KIND OF A DRAG PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY IS NOT ONE OF THEM.  Um, we are usually kind of acutely aware of that, thanks very much. 

The reason(s) why someone might continue to persist in behavior that is damaging to themselves is like the central conundrum of ALL human existence, Mr. Oliver.  Cutting up a fat guy on TV is highly unlikely to suddenly solve that problem for the overweight and obese viewers who catch the program.

And what the fuck?  "It's not pretty"??  Right.  Because it's an AUTOPSY.  Are skinny people SO much more appealing that even watching their autopsy would somehow be like seeing kittens playing in a box?  Or "Oh I thought I would be nauseated seeing the inside of a person on the outside, but the cadaver was so SLENDER it was just ELEGANT."

I’m being a bit grumpified about this whole thing, I know, when I’m sure his intentions are good.  But still.  The concept is so very fucking condescending my dander got all up.  Harrumph.

(And PS, Accidental Hedonist makes an interesting little point in this post about it.  Note she links to a recipe of his called an “Elvis Burger.”)

In less grumpy or grotesque food + TV news, Epicurious’s Editor’s Blog points you to a forum discussion on favorite TV show Kitchens.  Some responses…The Cosby Show?  I Love Lucy?  I can’t decide.