I think America's food culture is embedded in fast-food culture. And the real question that we have is: How are we going to teach slow-food values in a fast-food world? Of course, it's very, very difficult to do, especially when children have grown up eating fast food and the values that go with that.
Why would any sensible human being put meat filled with ammonia in the mouths of their children?
Jamie Oliver, quite rightly, was talking about trying to improve the diet of children in schools and improving school meals, but the net effect was the number of children eating school meals in many of these places didn't go up, it went down.
I am not saying celebrity chefs don't encourage children to cook. However, their programmes are so entertaining, you end up stuffing your face with Pot Noodles instead of learning from them.
When children are exposed to advertisements for unhealthy food, they will, in turn, consume significantly unhealthier rather than healthy calories as a result.
You can't hide broccoli in your glass of milk.
You cannot expect your children to be happy eating esoteric beige-colored foods when their friends get soda pop, Snickers, and Twinkies.
As a chef and father, it kills me that children are fed processed foods, fast food clones, foods loaded with preservatives and high-fructose corn syrup.
A lot of parents ask me how to get kids to eat more vegetables. The first thing I say is that it starts from the top.
I'm not into sugar for kids, but you don't want your kid to be the carrot kid. There's always the kid at the birthday parties carrying a bag of carrots. You've got to let them eat a little cake.
It starts in the home environment. If the parents eat bad? Those kids are going to eat bad. If they see their parents stopping at McDonald's or Pizza Hut, then that's what they're going to eat as well.
I challenge you, to go to any school and open 50 lunchboxes, and I guarantee you there will be one or two cans of Red Bull, there'll be cold McDonald's and jam sandwiches with several cakes.
The main influence on a child's palate may no longer be a parent but a series of food manufacturers whose products - despite their illusion of infinite choice - deliver a monotonous flavour hit, quite unlike the more varied flavours of traditional cuisine.
We eat all organic at home, so if we're running around and the kids want a hot dog or pretzel, I'll get it for them.
