The Ministry of Burger: The opinion of a Cairns’ personal trainer

After I saw today’s Jamie’s Ministry of Food I couldn’t help myself and had to write a commentary. I like that guy very much; he is trying so hard to implement very basics of cooking – eating healthy food into heads of ordinary people.

Here in Cairns, as in most other parts of the globe, Jamie is really a big icon in this business of cooking and nutrition. Why is it, in Australia at least, that advertisers and fast-food chains try to use the televised shows, and good name, of Jamie, for their own benefits. Parasites!

It really pissed me off the other night that the commercials during Jamie’s Ministry of Food, were about crap (unhealthy food); Pizza Hut, Dominos and Hungry Jacks were the few I noticed during my rant around the house at the hypocrisy of it all. Unfortunately, The Ministry of Food, is seen merely as a tool to source advertiser income, and the income of the audience who are now more likely to spend their money on “junk for their trunk”; research shows that people who feel good during a TV report much more positive feelings toward commercials shown during that programme (references on request).

These fast-food commercials should not be shown during a program that is actively doing something about increasing obesity rates, aiding those in poverty who do have not been skilled in healthy shopping and cooking habits, and just generally creating a better standard of living for those most in need of such.

I don’t think people are stupid – they really know that burgers and pizza are not healthy food; but due to the commercials being embedded in the Ministry of Food they now have a plausible excuse for over-indulging: “OK, if burgers and pizzas are advertised together with healthy food, they can’t be so bad.”

And that’s it. That’s what the companies want. They want to claim their products as healthy food. And, of course, all of this is about money. It is not about proactively taking responsibility for the part each of us (including advertisers and fast-food enterprises), have to ensure the health and well being of our communities.

Why do governments, academics and other social critiques continue to urge us on the one hand to educate ourselves toward healthy living, and on the other not use Policy to ensure that we have access to accurate and non-biased resources (i.e., due to the goals of advertisers and fast-food chains).

No wonder we continue to pay such heavy taxes, in the form of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and children who cannot focus on studies because their bodies are starved of nutrition.

Are you wanting real lifestyle change?  Harmonics: Massage, Training & Motivation will provide you with shopping tours, a “fridge blitz” and home-cooking nutrition with our Lifestyle Consultancy programs.

Share with us your lifestyle change needs via Comment or email (harmonics@zenbe.com)

And come join us over at Jaimie Oliver’s website~ HarmonicsCairns is on the blogroll. You too can join the campaign to “Pass it On”