Thursday, May 07, 2009

In the Kitchen with Bill Clinton

Today Bill Clinton joined Rachael Ray on her daytime show. He has been a guest many times before. He first joined Rachael in the kitchen when she launched her Yum-o! organization and announced a partnership with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation to teach families about healthy eating and combat childhood obesity. Bill Clinton through the work of his foundation has been fighting childhood obesity.

During the show, Rachael asks President Clinton for his opinion on the progress being made in the new administration:

"I think the fact that the first family planted a garden on the White House lawn will have as big an impact as almost anything they can do... I also believe you're going to see new initiatives coming out of Congress to help these schools. The Secretary of Agriculture is terrific, really understands these issues very well. I predict that the federal government will have a much more family-friendly policy and they'll really push these things. But I think they're off to a great start."
President Clinton continued on the subject of childhood obesity:
"It's important to understand that hunger and childhood obesity ironically go hand in hand, because the people who suffer from obesity are most likely to come from families that are just marginally above the line of needing food, so they use limited funds to buy high-caloric content at low cost. It's all they can afford. We may have 2 million people in New York City this year who are food short, so we're trying to raise enough money to feed the people who are hungry, and yet the obesity problem is going up with it."
He added that the current economic crisis could have a negative effect on their mission. "I've been so worried that with these financial problems schools would drop their healthy eating programs, undermine the quality of the food offered in the school, the exercise programs would go down again, so we have to work on them both at the same time. They're both a function of economic distress. It's just a question of where you are on the line of need."

For more information, check out President Clinton's Facebook page, the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, and Rachael's Yum-o! organization.

With Mother's Day on Sunday, Rachael asks what's on the agenda for the Clinton family:

"Chelsea and I are going to take Hillary and her mother, who will soon be 90 years old, out for Mother's Day... It'll be great."
He mentioned his own expertise in the kichen: "I cooked for Hillary a lot... We were married for a decade before she cooked for me as much as I cooked for her. I liked to cook when I was younger."

Watch Bill Clinton and Rachael Ray in the kicthen here!

See more Bill and Rachael Below:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw the broadcast (of course, I had to sit through the rest of Rachel Ray's show to see it) and I thought he did a great job of making people aware of the childhood obesity epidemic. He really has dedicated his private sector life to helping people, and that makes me love him even more. Great job, Bill!
P.S. Wow, did he look fine!

Stacy said...

I wish Rachel Ray would come over to my place and give me some cooking lessons and I wouldn't mind if Bill showed up either :). God, I suck at cooking!

I'll admit there were times during the Clinton presidency that I was very frustrated (policies such as DOMA, Don't Ask Don't Tell) with Bill and the Dems but I realize that no President can accomplish everything they want or get their way all the time (except perhaps GW Bush) and a lot depends on Congress. That said, I was always amazed at his brilliance (and the brilliance of the First Lady!) and I have always respected his passionate advocacy for causes he believes in and his work with the Clinton Foundations is tremendous.

Sometimes, Presidents can do as much, if not more, good as ex-Presidents than they could while in office. Now, if only he could teach me to cook something other than pasta and stir fry..

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