On Wednesday, First Lady Michelle Obama put kids to work in the White House kitchen and showed them just how grueling the task of preparing a healthful vegetarian meal can be.
The event was originally billed as a chance for “students from across the country” to pick vegetables from the White House Kitchen Garden:
“The First Lady welcomes students from across the country who participate in the ten Let’s Move! sub-initiative programs to harvest the White House Kitchen Garden. In 2009, Mrs. Obama planted a vegetable garden on the South Lawn to initiate a national conversation around the health and wellbeing of our nation—a conversation that evolved into her Let’s Move! initiative.”
But, because it was deemed too wet to harvest crops outdoors, the kids were moved into the kitchen, where the First Lady created a vegetable production line sweatshop. There, dour-looking children quietly tried to cut up some veggies using their bare hands, grated others, and toiled as if they were kitchen staff, as yellow-shirted foremen supervised them.
This statistically-improbable sample of students “from across the country” provides a chance to play “Where’s Waldo?” – can you spot the Caucasian kid in the video of this group of young food preparers?
The 51-minute event was even live-streamed on the White House website. A brief video clip is below – but, if you want to watch the entire sweatshop extravaganza, click here.