Top 60 Jamie Oliver Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Maybe God has a bigger plan for me than I have for myself.”

— Jamie Oliver

2. “The future is about a plant-based diet.”

— Jamie Oliver

3. “Every child should be taught to cook in school, not just talk about nutrition all day. Good food can be made in 15 minutes. This could be the first generation where the kids teach the parents.”

— Jamie Oliver

4. “Cooking is the ultimate giving!”

— Jamie Oliver

5. “Homicide is 0.8% of deaths. Diet-related disease is over 60%. But no one talks about it.”

— Jamie Oliver

6. “My aim is to achieve sustainable change, not just make a cute little makeover.”

— Jamie Oliver

7. “I profoundly believe that the power of food has a primal place in our homes, that binds us to the best bits of life.”

— Jamie Oliver

8. “When you are trying to move mountains, you want-and need-people on your side who want to move them with you.”

— Jamie Oliver

9. “Fight the staggering rise of type-2 diabetes by simply learning to cook healthy fresh food – it’s fun, and it could save your life!”

— Jamie Oliver

10. “The public health of five million children should not be left to luck or chance.”

— Jamie Oliver

11. “The whole idea is to earn the flavor. No one gives it to you.”

— Jamie Oliver

12. “Pick a destination, go there, be open-minded and talk to the locals. Eat the things they eat and go where they go. You don’t need to be fluent, just as long as you’ve got a smile on your face- people will be jumping over themselves to show you the stuff they’re proud of.”

— Jamie Oliver

13. “All I ever wanted to do was to make food accessible to everyone; to show that you can make mistakes – I do all the time – but it doesn’t matter.”

— Jamie Oliver

14. “The world is blessed most by men who do things, not by those who merely talk about them.”

— Jamie Oliver

15. “I hear loads of cynics saying that I’ll never be able to change anything. They say that junk food marketing and the ready availability of fast food is just too powerful. But I’d say in response, screw you. I know that most people, if they’re really honest, are fed up with the same old rubbish.”

— Jamie Oliver

16. “There is not one thing we can do to fix the problem, it has to be an ambush!”

— Jamie Oliver

17. “I wish for everyone to help create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.”

— Jamie Oliver

18. “I love roasting because you can give it love, get it in the oven and go and play with the kids or whatever you’ve got to do, and then hours later you’ve got a lovely dinner.”

— Jamie Oliver

19. “What I’ve enjoyed most, though, is meeting people who have a real interest in food and sharing ideas with them. Good food is a global thing and I find that there is always something new and amazing to learn – I love it!”

— Jamie Oliver

20. “Imagine a world where children were fed tasty and nutritious, real food at school from the age of 4 to 18. A world where every child was educated about how amazing food is, where it comes from, how it affects the body and how it can save their lives.”

— Jamie Oliver

21. “My first outdoor cooking memories are full of erratic British summers, Dad swearing at a barbecue that he couldn’t put together, and eventually eating charred sausages, feeling brilliant.”

— Jamie Oliver

22. “As usual, my timing is bizarrely good.”

— Jamie Oliver

23. “It’s just us trying to start a movement where everybody passes on a bit of cooking knowledge. We estimate that one person can potentially affect 180 others very quickly so we’re just trying to spread the word.”

— Jamie Oliver

24. “Industry, economy, honesty and kindness form a quartet of virtue that will never be improved upon.”

— Jamie Oliver

25. “I hate making TV documentaries.”

— Jamie Oliver

26. “If you only design menus that are essentially junk or fast food, the whole infrastructure supports junk.”

— Jamie Oliver

27. “Food is one of life’s greatest joys yet we’ve reached this really sad point where we’re turning food into the enemy, and something to be afraid of.”

— Jamie Oliver

28. “Your child will live a life ten years younger than you because of the landscape of food that we’ve built around them.”

— Jamie Oliver

29. “From quite an early age I realised the effect that good food can have on others.”

— Jamie Oliver

30. “I left school with basically nothing, I was a special needs kid. I did feel as though my school had let me down.”

— Jamie Oliver

31. “I wouldn’t say that processed food, ready meals and even takeaways aren’t relevant to modern life, it’s just that over the past 40 years there are three generations of people who have come out of school and gone through their home life without ever being shown how to cook properly.”

— Jamie Oliver

32. “If you can eat with mates or friends or family, I mean, it’s such a brilliant thing isn’t it? If you feel really rubbish and you have a nice bit of food it makes you feel good, you know?”

— Jamie Oliver

33. “Give your kids a bloody knife and fork and let me put some fresh food in front of them they can eat.”

— Jamie Oliver

34. “Many kids can tell you about drugs but do not know what celery or courgettes taste like.”

— Jamie Oliver

35. “Why would any sensible human being put meat filled with ammonia in the mouths of their children?”

— Jamie Oliver

36. “The kitchen oven is reliable, but it’s made us lazy.”

— Jamie Oliver

37. “But I read Catching Fire. I loved disappearing into a story.”

— Jamie Oliver

38. “It’s not the extremes and the treats that are the problem. It’s the everyday.”

— Jamie Oliver

39. “I’m probably a bit romantic about it, but I think we humans miss having contact with fire. We need it.”

— Jamie Oliver

40. “I could cook from quite an early age – purely because I liked it.”

— Jamie Oliver

41. “Basically, we’re taking a product that would be sold in the cheapest way for dogs, and after this process, is being given to human beings.”

— Jamie Oliver

42. “Now that I’ve got kids, it’s become really important for me on the health front to try to buy as much organic produce as possible.”

— Jamie Oliver

43. “As soon as I was old enough to peer over the worktops, I remember being fascinated by what went on in the kitchen. It just seemed such a cool place, everyone working together to make this lovely stuff and having a laugh doing it.”

— Jamie Oliver

44. “It’s very clear that there’s a lot of double standards going on. Should there be a 30mph speed limit? Of course there bloody should. And certainly with kids and school food, kids need to be nannied for sure. So give them a bloody good meal at school.”

— Jamie Oliver

45. “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.”

— Jamie Oliver

46. “I like ties but I prefer not to wear one when I’m nervous.”

— Jamie Oliver

47. “I’ve cooked just about everything really.”

— Jamie Oliver

48. “I think there are definitely two types of student: the academic kids and the 50% who fail. It’s very clear to see – it’s fact. We’re not doing enough for those who fail; they need a more physical, tactile approach, involving people skills, team-building, problem-solving, building things.”

— Jamie Oliver

49. “The best food I’ve ever eaten in my life has come from the poorest communities.”

— Jamie Oliver

50. “My general rule is that if everyone knew how to cook fresh produce from their local area, and Monday to Thursday within 20 minutes, you know, there’s millions of recipes out there to be had.”

— Jamie Oliver