If you have 20minutes I urge you to head over to watch Jamie Oliver's TED prize acceptance speech. This is a fantastic achievement. For those of you who have never heard of TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) it is an amazing concept bringing together some of the most innovative people from many different fields who are working to improve and change our society for the better.
While I know that Jamie Oliver can be a bit like marmite for some people (you love him or hate him...), I believe that the work he is doing to try and improve food awareness is incredibly important. All too often people are too lazy to learn to cook properly for themselves, citing time as one of the biggest factors. This doesn't have to be so, but you have to be motivated to learn short recipes and spend 20minutes cooking something from scratch for yourself. I sincerely believe that if Jamie's idea of improving food awareness via the education system is successful it will greatly help future generations.
I was never taught so formally to cook at school, but I got a love for food by being allowed to help in the kitchen from the age of 5 or 6, at childminders or my grandma's. When I went to uni I made sure that I could cook some things so that I could support myself without resorting to eating at the Uni restaurants. In Finland everyone has to take cookery lessons, boys and girls. They learn to make all sorts of foods and meals and are taught skills that allow them to be confident and creative in cooking meals for themselves, so they can be self-reliant when leaving home. I think Jamie has a mammoth task ahead, hopefully the TED prize will give him some public awareness and attract the backing of fellow forward-thinking and innovative people to support him in achieving his goal.
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