Where Jamie Oliver Failed

I can't remember that name of that show with British chef Jamie Oliver coming to some sad town in Appalachia - in West Virginia, I believe - with the extraordinarily difficult goal of getting the horribly unhealthy people there to "eat healthy", whatever that means as of October 2010. They don't seem to show the program anywhere on American TV right now; I saw a few episodes, lost track of it, and have never watched it since.

Oliver faced multiple pressures. One was the assembly-line nature of food and the natives' lack of free time to prepare healthy foods or the knowledge of how to prepare it. Another problem was the institutional pressure against "outsiders", a common one in Appalachia where I grew up. Oliver raised the ire of a conservative radio host who was unhappy that some furriner (probably a liberal to boot!) was coming in and slagging this wonderful slice of Middle America - God-fearin', gay-bashin', gun-lovin' etc. etc. etc.

There was an interesting segment - now highlighted on Metafilter - where Oliver wanted to wean the elementary school kids off chicken nuggets (like, say, the McDonald's McNugget). This was his plan. He would actually make a chicken nugget out of the various spare parts of the chicken used to make the nugget, parts so odious and disgusting that you don't even want to be in the same room with them under the best of circumstances. After kids saw how the nuggets were made - and had the choice of eating healthier and better fare - surely, the kids would choose the better food over the nuggets? Am I right?

Wrong. When Oliver asked for a show of hands, the overwhelming majority of kids picked the chicken nuggets. Maybe one young contrarian chose Oliver's fare, the rest wanted the nuggets.

So why did Oliver fail? He failed for lots of reasons. The first was that to the kids, chicken nuggets tasted better than what Oliver was offering. When people decide what to eat, there are only a few who decide, "okay, I'll eat that because it's healthy". Most people choose to eat what they eat because it tasted good. To the kids, the chicken nuggets tasted good and the taste issue trumped all other issues.

"But CINCGREEN!" you cry. "Chicken nuggets don't taste better! They taste like shite!" Well, maybe to you but not to the kids - and how are you going to tell someone that X tastes better than Y when they know otherwise? "Who are you going to believe, little girl, me or your own taste buds?"

Yes, most of the "taste" of chicken nuggets comes from meat with liberal applications of fat and salt. But Oliver failed to realize that this was the traditional diet of Applachia, heavily processed, fatty salty food. It was the only food the kids really knew. They had become attenuated to it, they were used to it. They were definitely not used to his healthy alternative, and for most people, taste is a matter of teaching. If you give a kid cinnamon with every meal, he's going to want the taste of cinnamon with his meals when he's a teen. He was fighting eight years of taste memory, if such a thing exists.

Furthermore, he thought that the gross factor would be enough to turn the tide. Unfortunately, it doesn't come close. Frankly, many foods are made in a disgusting way, cutting the meat off of some poor animal. Even vegetables grow in muck and shit. Life is disgusting. The only way you can avoid that in food is if you eat rock. My wife often says to me, "I'm so hungry I'd eat a rat's asshole if you put the right kind of sauce on it." And you know what? I've started to say it, too. Because it's true. I know what's in hot dogs; I ain't stopped eating them.

The final way Oliver failed is that he naively assumed the following:

My opponent has belief X.
I present my opponent with new information which clearly refutes X and supports my belief, Y.
My opponent, therefore, will switch his belief from X to Y when presented with the new information.

This is not only not true, it is only rarely true in the best of circumstances. It's only true if the opponent is already inclined to believe Y, or if the world makes a lot more sense if one believes Y instead of X. The belief will switch only under those two circumstances. As they say

A man convinced against his will/is of the same opinion, still.

Think of religious conversions, for example. How do you convince an atheist or a Muslim or a Christian to become Mormon (*)? Either the prospective convert is already inclined to go with the argument - his life is miserable and Mormonism is a great life preserver - or the person is rationally convinced that everything in his common experience makes much, more sense under Mormonism than it does under any other belief system.

In the end, the kids went with what they knew. They weren't unhappy with the food they had been previously eating. And, realizing the amount of trouble they'd have to go to switch over - even if they liked Oliver's new fare or had time to get used to it - it simply made little sense to switch. Health issues can't play into it because nine-year olds think they're immortal.

The information that Oliver presented wasn't an ultimate weapon. On the contrary, it was a man bringing a pen-knife to a bear fight. Either the bear has to be sick - or suicidal - for the man with the little knife to win it.

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(*) The argument is still out as to whether Mormonism is a subset of Christianity, or is so distinct that it should be called an entirely separate religion. Islam has Jesus, too, but Muslims generally aren't considered Christians.