Changing America’s food landscape

The season's finale of ABC's Food Revolution didn't end with the proverbial cliffhanger, but Jamie Oliver has created quite a hustle to bring his audience back next season.

Here you see a man who loves food as much as he loves to talk about food; but he doesn't quite talk the way other food celebrities on television do. Anthony Bourdain, Alton Brown, Robert Irvine, Andrew Zimmern , Rachel Ray, Ted Allen, Gordon Ramsay and many others all talk about pleasing the palate, the craft of cookery, the profession, or the adventures with food. But Oliver is quite unlike any other connoisseur. He is the food-pontiff on a mission to save America.

After attaining iconic status in the United Kingdom for reforming lunches in schools, Oliver travels to Huntington, W. Va., America’s “unhealthiest” city according to Centers for Disease Control. The show chronicles his mission to fix high school’s lunch program against the wishes of lunch bosses, vitriolic local radio show host, and fuzzy federal regulations.

Oliver wants a healthy America. He is not a proponent of no-meat diet or vegan-only food. His rants are mostly about the dangers of processed foods and the harmful effects of fast food on a person’s health. To encourage people, especially kids, to eat fresh vegetables and local produce, he wants to educate them first. The message that Huntington brings with its notoriety for being the fattest city is as disturbing as having one-third adult population in the country as obese and more than half considered overweight. The price? Direct or indirect annual spending of nearly $150 billion.

Have a look at America's expanding waistline

There is much to blame on America’s food culture and the ease of fast food. It’s not hard to predict whether a person will grab a quick burger or spend 15 minutes in the kitchen preparing a “healthy meal.” And it’s precisely this message that Oliver is emphasizing: Teach children to cook.

At the recent TED talk, he spoke about the importance of changing the "landscape of food around us" so that children of the future generation can live healthier and much longer lives. His focus on educating kids about good healthy food at school seems just right to set the tone toward future eating habits that could come either by integrating cooking classes in the school curriculum or learning to cook ten simple recipes before leaving high school. And he might just have achieved that in Huntington. At least, he won the bet (beer) and friendship of the local radio talk show host whose skepticism didn’t stop the community members to flock at Jamie’s Kitchen, and at the street in front, to toss pepper and spaghetti.

Food Revolution is a reality-TV-documentary that brings the right dose of message to address a killer issue. Oliver’s message is simple: If America does it, the rest of the world will follow. So?

Sign Jamie's petition to save cooking skills and improve school food

My favorite episode from Hulu.


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Bring changes to the tradition

Nepalese revere the Kumari, the virgin deity, almost as much as the Mt. Everest. But once the girl is ceased to be worshiped as the living goddess after attaining puberty or loss of blood due to injury, she loses her divine status. Her life after that mostly remains in seclusion and in unproclaimed banishment for lack of social skills and education.

The Supreme Court in 2008 ruled in favor of the Kumaris for their right to education and other human rights. The Kumari of Bhaktapur was in news couple years ago when she created a furor in the conservative religious community after visiting the United States at the invitation of a documentary maker. She was even briefly stripped of her Kumari status. This year the Nepali media have happily reported about the 15-year-old Kumari of Patan who appeared in the school leaving certificate exams. Now there is news she wants to work in the financial sector.

These are signs that the Nepalese people are slowly showing tolerance toward religious symbols and practices that were so zealously guarded for centuries. By tutoring the Kumari at her home and giving her opportunities at par with other students, the Guthi Sansthan has earned more respect for its sensitivity toward the issue.

Nepalese society now needs to challenge the tradition of the Pashupati temple that bars non-Hindus from entering its premises. It is not just against the secular character of a nation but also against the tenets of the religion itself that touts equality. If a religion forbids a non-believer from entering its most sacred place, how can it be assumed that there is respect for all people no matter what?

The guardians of the Kumari tradition have taken a bold step, can the Hindus come out of their silos now?


Learn about the virgin goddess of Patan.

Response to Carol Christiano

This is my response to Carol Christiano who considers Nepal to be a part of India when the Buddha was born.
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Carol: Thank you for allowing me to briefly educate you on the ancient history of the Indian subcontinent. What we now consider India or Nepal did not exist when Gautam Buddha was born. He was born in a principality whose capital was Kapilvastu. There were several small and large "kingdoms" during that time. The Maurya dynasty of the Magadh Empire gained prominence two hundred years after Buddha's death.

If you read the history of independent kingdoms during that time, you'll find reference to 16 flourishing empires known as "mahajanapad", or great countries. Some of them are Anga, Chedi, Gandhara, Kasi, Kosala, Kuru, Matsya, Magadha, Panchala etc. References to these independent kingdoms can also be found in the Hindu epic Mahabharata. Some of the rulers of these kingdoms even resisted the conquest of Alexander. It is in one such small Shakya republic of the Kosala kingdom, Siddhartha Gautam was born. How can you then say he was born in India? Therefore, a correct reference is: He was born in present-day Nepal.

There's no denial that Siddhartha Gautam spend his life as a teacher in nearby kingdoms that are now in India. Most of the rulers of these empires became his followers. Ashoka was the most prominent ruler of the time of the Magadha Empire who was also an ardent follower of the Buddhist ideology. He officially patronized the religion and appointed "Rajukas" to see that dhamma was followed in his kingdom. Besides sending missionaries led by his own son and daughter, it is also believed that he ordered thousands of stupas to be build across his empire and beyond. It is this expansion that helped Buddhism to spread as a religion in India and other parts of Asia and China. But this attempt doesn't undermine the historical fact about his birth.

If you have time, please read "2500 years of Buddhism" whose foreword is by S. Radhakrishnan, a religious scholar and India's second president.

The question of what constitutes India as a nation became clear only in the last 150 years or so, and politically only in 1947 when India and Pakistan were carved out. When the East India Company came to "India" in 1600 AD, they came to the empires and principalities that were eventually colonized by the British Empire in the next 300 years to form the present-day Indian nation. This political unit is different than the narrative of "India" found in the historical texts that is generically used to refer to the all the empires that existed in the Indian subcontinent, sometimes even extending up to Southeast Asia.

However, you must be aware that the modern day territory of Nepal (that includes Kapilvastu) and the Siamese kingdom (modern day Thailand) are the only two countries in the region that have not been colonized and have remained independent. Therefore, you like many others, are absolutely wrong to say that Nepal was "considered" India at the time of the Buddha's birth.

I hope you'll appreciate the importance of updating your knowledge on this issue. And if you are not satisfied by my explanation, you are free to "investigate it for yourself" just as you've said in your previous post.

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The above response was prepared after Carol Christiano responded to my comments on "The Buddha" Facebook page.

This is what I wrote:
PBS must get its fact correct on the birth of the Buddha. The preview video repeatedly mentions he was born in India. You are WRONG! Please be aware of the UNESCO's listing on Lumbini, the Birthplace of the Lord Buddha.

Please don't drag Gautam Buddha to controversy.

Carol Christiano's response:
Sijan: Shakyamuni Buddha was born 2500 years ago in "modern day" Nepal. At the time of his birth it was considered India, so I don't believe it is incorrect to state his place of birth India. There was no Nepal in existence at that time.

India hijacks Lord Buddha from Nepal

This time it's PBS that must face the Nepalese wrath over Lord Buddha's issue. David Grubin's 2-hour documentary that premieres on April 7 has ample references that will appropriately pique the Nepalese sentiments for calling Lord Buddha an Indian.

Narrated by Hollywood actor Richard Gere, "The Buddha" chronicles young Siddhartha's journey through artwork and animation. A peek into the documentary shows commentaries from the Dalai Lama, Pulitzer-prize winner poet W.S. Merwin and other prominent scholars and monastics.

John F. Wilson, PBS senior vice president and chief TV programming executive says, "By continuing our exploration of the world's religions, we are delighted to participate in broadening people's understanding of Buddhism today with David Grubin's moving portrait of the life of the Buddha."

Wilson's hope of creating an "understanding" doesn't seem to be reflected in the preview video posted on the Web nor on the description of the DVD put up for online sale. At the beginning of the preview video when the Buddha's birth is described, the narrator says, "The stories say that before his birth, his mother, the queen of a small Indian kingdom, had a dream."

This information is obviously wrong. During the time of the Buddha's birth 2,500 hundred years ago, there was no India or Nepal. But Siddhartha Gautam was born in Lumbini, the present-day Nepal. Archeological findings corroborate this fact that is endorsed by the UNESCO. But there seem to be deliberate efforts to either falsify or hide references of Nepal when it comes to the Buddha's birth.

Even if this documentary was made in collaboration with the Asia Society, the essay on The Origins of Buddhism on the Society's Web site mentioned the Buddha was born in North India. It was only after a reader's correction the reference to North India was removed, but even then the article falls short of mentioning Nepal as the birthplace of the Buddha.

While a long-term publicity and awareness campaign might rectify this error, for now we really need to complain PBS for distorting the historical facts. In fact, The Himalayan Voice wrote to the production company "to correct the information before the documentary is aired." In reply the David Gruber Productions claims that the film "explicitly" mentions that Buddha was born in southern Nepal. This is an exquisitely idiotic explanation. No sane person could accept that. How can one ignore the fact that in the 5-minute video preview Siddhartha's mother is called "the queen of a small Indian kingdom," in the blurb of the DVD version the Buddha is called "the Indian sage," and in the PBS TV schedule listing the Buddha's "northern India" affiliation is highlighted?

Certainly, the sage is beyond all disputes but the controversy is real and getting nastier.

PBS not only needs to purge the erroneous information but also owes a sincere apology with a commitment to participate in a publicity campaign to establish Nepal's position against all propaganda.

Raise your voice by commenting on PBS Facebook page and other social networking sites.