Jamie Oliver, celebrities, chefs launch successful Food Revolution Day in India

Food Revolution Day

India saw the launch of Food Revolution Day this year. Amidst a fanfare of celebrities, live cooking events, a flurry of social media activity and, of course, the inimitable British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who launched the pioneering event highlights included chefs and celebrities streaming live on Facebook during a seven-hour cooking marathon.

Food Revolution Day, which is now in its fifth year, saw Jamie joined by a host of well-known chefs and personalities, all of whom carried out Facebook Live broadcasts from the around the world to help make history. Some of the notable names included: Jacqueline Fernandez and Chef Kunal Kapur (Mumbai, India); Chef Gennaro, Chef Clodagh McKenna, Charlotte Crosby, Alfie Deyes, Tanya Burr and Jum Chapman (London); Kris Jenner, Wolfgang Puck and Cody Simpson (L.A. USA); Chef Donna Hay (Sydney, Australia); Chef Ali and Juliani (Nairobi, Kenya); Chef Tim Lazer, Chef Steffen Henssler and Janina Uhse (Hamburg, Germany); Chef David Hertz, Marina Person, Rodrigo Oliveira, Ana Luiza Trajano (Sao Paulo, Brazil); cookery personality Marion Elias and Ali Kiba (Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania); Chef Eros and Waje (Lagos, Nigeria); Chef Lynn Crawford (Toronto, Canada); and Bart Van Olphen and Miljuschka Witzenhausen (Netherlands).

The unique initiative saw Jamie and numerous famous faces, including the campaign’s Global Champions Bollywood A-lister Jacqueline Fernandez and judge and host of MasterChef Kunal Kapur, calling for people around the world to sign up to the Food Revolution. Jamie and his army of revolutionaries staged a series of live events to encourage governments at the World Health Assembly meeting in Geneva to tackle the child nutrition crisis.

Food Revolution Day was also supported on social media by Coldplay, James Corden, Kate Hudson, Nicole Scherzinger, Rio Ferdinand, Paloma Faith, Niall, Zoella, Jim, Tanya, Louis, Pixi Woos, Haste Kicthen, Olly Murs, Ronan Keating, Marlon Roudette, Cascada, Cornelia Pletto, Palina Rojinski, Holger Stromberg, Chris Mears, Naomie Harris, Jake Paul, Emmanuelle Chriqui and Keltie Knight.
Food Revolution Day in India was partnered with The Akshaya Patra Foundation, the world’s largest free midday meal programme, which serves nutritious food to over 1.5 million children every school day, in 11,000 schools across 10 states in India. On Food Revolution Day, they served their 2 billionth meal in a school in Guwahati, Assam.

As part of Food Revolution Day, Jamie also took part in an International Omelette Challenge global to get people, young and old, experiencing first-hand how super-quick, easy and delicious healthy grub can be wherever you are, and encourage more noise on social media for the Food Revolution.

The aim of Food Revolution Day was to encourage people to join them in a full-scale, global Food Revolution – a major part of which will be giving people power to lobby their own governments to fight diet-related disease. It aims to provoke discussion and inspire positive, meaningful change in the way we access, consume and understand food. Starting in kitchens at home and moving up to the highest levels of business and government, Jamie believes people must work together to empower children with the nutritional knowledge and resources they need to live healthier, happier lives. Currently 41 million children under five are overweight while another 159 million are too undernourished to grow properly: we are in the middle of a global health crisis.

Jamie Oliver said: The last 15 years have been tough at times. There were a few of us out there asking questions, wanting answers and making a lot of noise but it often felt like no one was listening. But recently we’ve started making headway, governments are beginning to change policies. This Food Revolution Day we’re going to give governments that extra little nudge by running the longest-ever Facebook Live campaign, getting millions of people involved from all around the globe. The World is crying out for action and there has never been a better time to make changes to save millions of lives.”

Currently, 41 million children under five are overweight while another 159 million are too undernourished to grow properly: we are in the middle of a global health crisis. Food Revolution Day, now in its 5th year, aims to provoke discussion and inspire positive, meaningful change in the way we access, consume and understand food.

In India, the government is trying to reduce the number of malnourished children by launching initiatives like the ‘Infant and Young Child Feelings Counselling Centre’ in certain states. At the same time, it is beginning to tackle the obesity crisis by raising awareness of the negative impact that poor dietary and lifestyle choices can have on health, with programmes like the ‘National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases & Stroke.

Jamie Oliver and thousands of others across the globe are asking for people to call on their governments to commit to action on nutrition and sign up to the Food Revolution (www.jamiesfoodrevolution.org) and use #foodrevolution in social media posts to show global leaders that this is an issue that can’t be ignored.

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