Michelle Obama’s Passion for Children’s Nutrition Hits The Big Screen in Netflix’s “Waffles + Mochi”

Image Source: Variety

BY STAFF WRITER ADITI DESAI ‘24

Kids have all kinds of debates, passionately furious and outwardly inspiring debates which attempt to take a crack at determining the best Star Wars characters or deciding which puzzle piece fits into the middle spot. However, though these debates are certainly interesting, Neftlix’s new children’s food series Waffles + Mochi takes on a new, refreshing flavor of debates — delving into investigations of food, curiosity, and cooking while asking highly controversial questions, such as “are tomatoes are fruits or vegetables?” This children’s show, a refreshing break from culinary competition series like The Great British Baking Show and Chopped, is  centered—quite predictably—on all things food. This being said, Waffles + Mochi is not just about food, but is rather about fostering an informed, curious love for food — about how to enter the kitchen as a creator, mix ingredients with intention, and view cooking as experimentation. Thus, the show differs extensively from existing food-centric shows in its execution, premise, and not to mention— in the show’s strikingly familiar host who goes by Mrs. O (short for Mrs. Obama). 

Created by Erika Thormahlen and Jeremy Konner, Waffles + Mochi is geared towards children, comprising a satisfying medley of puppets, live action, and animation. The first season alone was filmed in locations across the world, featuring places in Peru, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Uganda, and the United States. An all-star cast of chefs, including José Andrés, Samin Nosrat, and Bricia Lopez, also appear in various episodes. However, in many ways, the allure of Waffles + Mochi goes beyond the prestige of its producers and well-known cast. 

The show stars the iconic puppet duo comprising Waffles, a talkative, part-waffle and part-yeti food enthusiast, and Mochi, a cherry-pink, inedible japanese desert who communicates exclusively through meeping. In the opening episode, the two band together to escape the tundra that is The Land Of Frozen Food — a land where all food bears the resemblance of ice cubes and fresh produce is widely unheard of. After hopping onto the back of a delivery truck to escape their misery, the two arrive at a seemingly commonplace grocery store owned by the friendly gardener, Mrs. O, who steers the puppet duo around the globe to explore the possibilities of food, allowing them to pick up life lessons, learn culinary tricks, and meet new chefs along the way. Each thirty-minute episode is centered on a different core ingredient, such as tomatoes, rice, potatoes, or eggs, which Waffles and Mochi demystify on their cross-country, cross-continental adventure in their magic shopping cart. Most times, they meet with a celebrity or well-known figure in food-culture to learn about how the ingredient can be utilized in ethnic dishes; along the way, they begin to understand why tomatoes can be both fruits and vegetables, or why mushrooms aren’t scary.  

So, how did this 10-episode culinary creation get started? In 2018, Michelle Obama and her husband signed a development deal with Netflix and the couple’s production company, Higher Ground. The vision for this show was uncertain at the time, though Obama’s desire to spark youth curiosity for healthy eating had already been kickstarted by her position as First Lady of the United States. During her time in the political spotlight, Obama was fairly open about her family’s experience with food, nutrition, and fitness. Describing her worry about her family’s health, Obama recalls that she “wasn’t exactly sure what to do with her children’s pediatriciaion’s warning that her daughters’ body mass index (BMI) was creeping up.” Rather, what she did know was that “[she] had to do something—something to lead [her] family to a different way.” Slowly, what was a personal matter spilled into the political realm. Obama spent much of her time in the White House taking on the self-declared role of “mom-in-chief”—battling against not only her own family’s struggles with nutrition, but also the broader presence of childhood obesity in America. Her campaign, known formally as the Let’s Move! Initiative, is one of Obama’s most well-known endeavors and ultimately influenced the trajectory of American children's health narrative.

Obama was particularly moved by 2010 research findings  reporting that schools were commonly serving children the kinds of calorie-dense foods and nutrient-poor meals—pizza, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, french fries — foods which  intensify children’s risk of obesity. Moreover, Obama did not neglect the fact that healthy eating was not an accessible possibility for the numerous low-income families that rely on their schools to feed their children at least one meal a day. As such, reforming the food system in schools was not just a nutrition problem, but also a social-justice issue. And, despite having limited legislative power as FLOTUS, Obama brought her campaign to a variety of different platforms—some political and others communal. She planted a White House garden, launched social media initiatives, and balanced partnerships with teachers, legislators, schools, and food giants to change how children in America fuel their bodies. After consulting with some of the nation's top obesity experts, Obama pushed for the legislation of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 which centered on “cleaning” up school foods by offering a wider suite of fruits, vegetables, and low-sodium meats in cafeterias. Though children’s diets still fall dramatically short of sufficient nutrition standards, Obama’s push to prevent childhood obesity sparked conversation and fundamental shifts our , homes, schools, communities, and governments. As noted by Michale Moss, author of the book Salt Sugar Fat, “tackling America’s obesity problem needs to involve more than making junk foods healthy; it needs to make healthy food more visible and available.” To generate this kind of visibility and build on Obama’s legacy, especially in the midst of a pandemic when more adolescents are able to choose what they eat, we must tap into different media outlets that are not only widely accessible, but likewise engaging and informative. 

So then, what makes this show stand out amongst other food-culture classics? Its magic is largely rooted in the imaginative and the exploratory — the indulgence into food as a means to navigate across cultural and societal values. The show diverges from the traditional narrative of nutrition through its fantastical and mythical premise. The result is an invitation for kids to see food as a source of excitement rather than a lecture on nutritional content. Moreover, in each location, Waffles + Mochi guides viewers through the world of food and the sensory experiences that come with eating. “It's got crunch,” Waffles explains as he bites into pani puri, a traditional Indian street food. “And, then I taste the chickpeas, which are very creamy and soft. Then, you get a pow with the tomato!” The passionate descriptions equip viewers with a flavorful vocabulary to better understand and appreciate diverse foods. 

Within such food-filled adventures, Waffles + Mochi captures the more hidden message of inclusivity in food culture. An episode on rice — which uncovers how Mochi partly descends from the ingredient — brings viewers to Japan, where Waffles and Mochi learn to make traditional onigiri with a father-toddler duo. Moreover, in this episode, the guest star—culinary historian Michael W. Twitty—recounts his own family lineage,tracing how rice connects West Africa to the early United States. Twitty specifically describes how his great-grandmother was “separated from her family and her home and had to work, by force, for free.” Another episode touches on a restaurant that is entirely staffed by refugees, and yet another features a Bay Area pizzeria named Mozzeria, in which both owners and employees are deaf and rely on sign language and facial expressions to communicate their love for food. Thus, the show, in addition to being  lighthearted and buoyant on the surface, is globally inclusive in its point of view. It doesn’t sidestep sensitive topics or culturally pressing issues: instead, producers challenge the traditionally elite and sophisticated facade of food culture and utilize the show’s food-centric platform to incorporate broader educational topics that are frequently glossed over in elementary education.

Although the show reflects Obama’s enduring mission of alleviating childhood obesity by encouraging diverse, nutritious choices, Waffles + Mochi goes one step beyond Obama’s campaign by confronting topics which many people, even adults, shy away from—topics which exceed the boundaries of food and enter conversations about water scarcity, ethnic stereotyping, and disability inclusion. In a broader sense, the show demonstrates how political campaigns can be—and are—brought into children’s everyday lives through media in a way that is not only engaging, but also educationally cognizant. By involving puppets, who are given no distinct gender or race, the show reaches a wider audience and demonstrates that love and appreciation for food is not exclusive to particular identities. And, while Waffles + Mochi embodies this inclusive “edu-tainment” philosophy, it is also filled with a parallel dose of fun, food-obsessed puppets who have a laundry list of ingredients to uncover—honey, beans, and bread to name a few. In essence, the many dimensions of the series—the high-pitched songs, the inclusive and food-filled locations, Mrs. O’s presence—fuse into a glorious dish which is intended to not only get kids cooking, but also thinking about the foods that they eat each day. While the puppets waltz down the aisles of the grocery store asking seemingly silly questions, it’s difficult not to be on the edge of your seat, craving answers. Witnessing the way in which Waffles and Mochi express their unabashed enthusiasm for a spectrum of ingredients and foods, children—along with their parents and families—can surely feel like they’re biting into something unexpectedly decadent—a treat consistent of multiple layers of rich, creamy topics that need to be savored and remembered.