Here’s something I never thought I’d say: I ate wheat germ.

Here’s something else I never thought I’d say: week after week, the Naked Chef makes me cry.

Alright, well maybe not totally cry, but I get a little teary.

Jamie Oliver a.k.a. “The Naked Chef,”  turned his celebrity chef status into virtual advocacy when he took on the use of processed foods in the schools of his native England.

In doing so, Oliver was able to make change – turning processed lunches into home-cooked, wholesome meals for kids and giving students, school officials and parents an education as well.

Now, Oliver has brought his mission to the states.

His reality television show, “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,” has documented Oliver’s venture into the world of Huntington, W. Va., deemed the unhealthiest or the heaviest city in America, according to a 2008 CDC report.

The city is, understandably, unhappy with the distinction.

Oliver brought his “manifesto for school dinners” to the Huntington school district, and the show follows him as he tries to change the way cafeterias cook up their lunches from processed and unhealthy to fresh and wholesome.

What gets me about Oliver’s mission is each week, no matter what he’s trying to do – be it introducing elementary school kids to the idea of roasted chicken or getting rid of sugary sweet strawberry and chocolate milks or simply talk about changing eating habits – there is not one time Oliver hasn’t faced a monster challenge.

I mean, people hate him. Children can’t tell tomatoes from carrots; he runs into governmental regulation time after time. Although edited and likely dramatized, those challenges are frustrating even to viewers.

One might find trying to be a survivor on a crazy island a whole lot easier than getting kids to eat real chicken and parents to encourage it.

By the first or second episode (I can’t remember exactly which) Oliver is in tears over the resistance he’d gotten from school officials after comments he made in a local newspaper article were received badly.

Right off the bat, Oliver met his adversary in a local radio disc jockey who day after day railed him on the air for coming in and all but force feeding vegetables to a town he said wasn’t interested in eating healthy.

How he overcame the challenge is the reason “The Naked Chef” is so inspiring.

Because it’s not about eating. It’s not about the way food is made. It’s about the choices being made.

The results of the unhealthy eating practices exemplified in Huntington were nothing short of deadly, Oliver revealed. Diabetes and even death aren’t a surprise when it comes to unhealthy eating, but the chef put faces to the facts and the figures and the overwhelming statistics.

He sat his biggest critic down face-to-face with a high school student whose liver was so damaged if she didn’t do something about her obesity she could be looking at only seven years left to live.

You have to see it to get it. And I highly suggest you do. It’s available on www.hulu.com or www.abc.com.

The thing is, Oliver gets bombarded with challenge after challenge from all sides. And that’s usually the way it is when we get ourselves into a place of utter indulgence despite the damage. And it happens to everyone at one point or another.

We give in to temptation. We succumb to vices. We do more harm than good. We get greedy in some way, shape or form. We want it all; so much so, we can’t tell when we’ve had enough.

And that is when we take too much. Oliver’s combating food. But combat knows many fields. People eat too much, drink too much, lie, cheat, steal, take too much liberty, too much for granted, too much of others.

At some point in time in anybody’s life, we’ve been the proverbial bull in the china shop, breaking things and leaving the pieces behind us.

While we’re doing it, whether we’re filling ourselves with processed foods we don’t need, refusing to change our habits out of fear, taking what doesn’t belong to us or telling lies to others – we’re really just lying to ourselves.

For every negative challenge thrown at Oliver was a hidden and yet to be admitted realization that the damage was catching up.

And the fact is it really is a fight to get out. Oliver fights against these elements in each show and it’s inspiring because he just keeps fighting.

And to keep fighting … that is the point.

Jessica Sieff is a reporter for the Niles Daily Star. Reach her at
jessica.sieff@leaderpub.com.