Critique of Jamie Oliver Cookbook Has Familiar Ring

An anti-meat group is blasting Jamie Oliver as a hypocrite. Oliver plays the expert's role on nutrition, they say, yet published what the group calls the worst cookbook of 2011:

Jamie Oliver is on a mission to revolutionize school nutrition, but some recipes in his new cookbook have more fat and cholesterol than many fast-food burgers, doctors say. Jamie Oliver’s Meals in Minutes: A Revolutionary Approach to Cooking Good Food Fast tops the list of the Five Worst Cookbooks of 2011 released by the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM).

PCRM says a serving of Oliver's meatball sub has calories (1,182), sugar, and other nutritional contents equivalent to two McDonald's Big Macs. (Also worth noting: PCRM puts Cooks Illustrated on its list for "featuring grilled meat" in many of its recipes.)

Among those not surprised by Oliver's double standard is Keep Food Legal executive director Baylen Linnekin, who noted in a 2010 article for Reason magazine that a school lunch recommended by Oliver contains more calories (1,183), fat, and sugar than a pair of Happy Meals.

You might wonder here what foods Keep Food Legal urges people to eat. Should they avoid meat? Or eat more meat? Should they run out and buy Oliver's cookbooks? Or should they run screaming in the other direction? Beyond suggesting people discuss nutrition over with their family and their doctor, we don't have any dietary advice. None. It says so right there at the bottom of our mission statement:

One thing KFL will never do is advocate in favor of (or against) any particular foods or dietary choices. We believe strongly that adults should eat what they want (or what they and their doctor think is best for them). And we also believe that children should eat what they and their parents think is best for them. Government shouldn’t tell you what to eat, and neither should KFL.

Eat and let eat. That's a central tenet of our commitment to culinary freedom. And it will remain so.