Jamie Oliver is advocating for a sugar tax to be introduced in Britain.
Jamie Oliver is advocating for a sugar tax to be introduced in Britain.
Crusading chef wants a sugar tax to curb obesity and diabetes.
Jamie Oliver is the cuddliest angry campaigner I've met. He's sitting next to me on a sofa in a thick-knit jersey and jeans with a golden tan (or, in the case of a chef, is it "browned"?) and he's stretching, apparently without inhibition, so that his arm runs down the back of the chair behind me.
He's angry, he assures me with a massive boyish grin. "Really, really f*****g angry." And "passionate". And "more frustrated than anything". And that's the thing about Oliver: he's completely relaxed, chirpy — even a tiny bit flirty — while being a hard-line political activist.
Today, he's agitating for a sugar tax. He wants a levy of 20p (NZ$0.45) a litre on sugary fizzy drinks — "the single largest source of sugar in our kids' diets". He argues, this will tackle the rising epidemic of rotting teeth and type 2 diabetes, and financially benefit the "crumbling" NHS, which spends £30 million (NZ$71.4m) and £9 billion respectively on these issues.
As a mark of his commitment, Oliver has introduced a tax on fizzy drinks in his restaurants and is persuading colleagues in the restaurant world to do the same.
"We'll show the Government what can be achieved," he says.
Oliver is the chef with a social conscience. It's exactly 10 years since he launched School Dinners, a radical campaign to ban unhealthy lunches in schools. And there's Fifteen, a restaurant chain set up to train disadvantaged young people for careers in the catering trade.
"If School Dinners was Star Wars, this is definitely The Empire Strikes Back," he quips about his sugar-tax initiative.
Jamie's Sugar Rush, a new documentary he's made to launch his campaign, shows the gruesome — "medieval" as he calls it — results of too much sugar.
A 6-year-old boy has his rotten teeth pulled out with pliers by a medic, who tells the camera this grisly procedure happens every day, with 26,000 primary school children treated for tooth decay in Britain in the past year.
Elsewhere, there are uncomfortably close shots of amputee stumps, and a voiceover says there are 7,000 amputations in Britain a year (and rising) because of sugar consumption linked to type 2 diabetes. Oliver wants to make the campaign so vocal it becomes a mission for the prime minister, a father.
Now 40, Oliver appears to have scrubbed up his image. He's slimmed down, ditched the edgy fashion and bleach-flecked Duran Duran hair and re-emerged as a homely sort of Socialist Sloane. Is this turnaround a side effect of his fight against sugar?
Oliver's documentary says 26,000 British primary school kids were treated for tooth decay in the past 12 months. Photo / iStock
"It totally fits with this campaign," he says. "I can't remember exactly how much weight I've lost — I think 12kg."
As well as cutting sugar, he started eating seaweed, eggs, nuts — and quit alcohol during the week.
Another change was the 10pm bedtime so he could achieve his habitual 5am start "with a twinkle in the eye".
"Also, turning 40 is an interesting one. You realise you are not indestructible, but you also become much more paternal."
He has no qualms about bowling up to strangers and interfering if he feels they are doing wrong by their children. "For sure, I say something. I say: 'Are you crazy?' And the reaction is usually: 'Mind your own f*****g business.' But I've seen cola being fed to babies." He shakes his head in dismay.
There are no fizzy drinks at the Olivers' house in North London — but his children, Poppy, 13, Daisy Boo, 12, Petal, 6, and Buddy, 4, are allowed one as an "occasional treat".
His wife Jools, who designs the children's clothes range Little Bird, is more "militant", he says, but neither does she believe in total abstinence from sugar.
"I'm not saying ban sugary sweets and drinks completely. I've never said that. I'm not a nutter."
For example, he says: "Cake is important. You can analyse cake's nutritional benefits, but there's other things: psychological happiness, being normal, the joy of life."
He knows his sugar tax plan is controversial but says the money it raises would be ring fenced — given to the NHS, schools and initiatives.
He's ready to "get a kicking", he says, from people in the food and drinks industry, who will no doubt scoff that, being worth a reported £180 million, he can afford to pay more for what his children consume.
"But I'm a working-class kid. I went to a regular school." His dream is to see George Osborne, the UK Chancellor, include in his red box on Budget day a levy on sugar, alongside tax increases on alcohol and tobacco.
