14 DAY TRIAL // British chef Jamie Oliver is now in the US, getting ready to start his very own “Food Revolution,” one that will hopefully end with the people in Huntington, West Virginia changing their eating habits for a healthier life. In order to promote the new ABC show, Oliver put in an appearance on David Letterman, who remained somewhat unconvinced about the chances of success the cook has, as Metro can also confirm.
Letterman is known for making fun of his guests but, for what it’s worth, Jamie did not give up on trying to make the host see his point. Just like his ABC show, Oliver’s arguments the other night highlighted the need for a change. With all that, Letterman insisted on the fact that it’s hard to make people to eat healthy when there are so many companies that would take huge losses if they did. At the same time, Letterman joked that, because of this, losing weight was only possible through diet pills.
“You know who was on the program last week was Kirstie Alley and she has a kind of second career dealing with her weight,” Letterman said, laying the basis of his argument that people will only lose weight if doctors prescribe them pills. “Try as hard as you might you are never going to succeed because we are living in a culture dominated by the commerce of selling food that is inherently unhealthy. I have my own struggle and everyone has struggled with weight. After five or six, ten or twenty years of trying to lose weight there is nothing in this culture you can do to lose weight short of medication,” he said.
On a lighter tone, Letterman also said that eating healthy was something that Americans simply couldn’t learn to do, just like they weren’t able to make the switch to the metric system or learn to play soccer. “Its just awful. But you go into any supermarket – I don’t know what its like in England – there are 160 different kinds of cookies. As long as they are selling 160 different types of cookie what hope do you have?” he added on a more serious note.
Oliver’s response was simple and to the point: “As you can see ladies and gentleman, my challenge is big.” He also offered Letterman examples of things the world did not think possible but that eventually came to happen, like the smoking ban. To see Jamie Oliver’s entire chat with David Letterman, check out the video below.