Food, Money, Culture: Why Biggest Loser May Be the Most Important Show on TV

The problem with most reality shows is they seldom reflect actual reality. Personally, I know very few fallen pop stars with plastic surgery addictions, only one or two aspiring international dance teams, and exactly zero moms of 18.

But Biggest Loser isn’t like that. Airing Tuesday nights on NBC, the show focuses on folks with whom we’re intimately familiar: the obese. They’re our moms and dads, our coworkers and cousins, our friends and fellow bloggers. They’re us, and because of this, Biggest Loser is eminently relatable – much moreso than Flavor of Love, anyway.

The show’s premise is simple: take a bunch of heavy people from across the country, see who can lose the most weight, and reward the winner with $250,000. Sounds relatively controversy-proof, right? Not so much.

Somewhat rightfully so, Biggest Loser has vocal, emphatic detractors. Critics claim it promotes an unrealistic image of dieting, doesn’t give contestants the tools to maintain their weight loss, and holds fat people up as freaks.** Lots of participants end up gaining back all the poundage once the show wraps, and the editing leaves out gigantically important details of each Loser’s journey. Plus, Jillian is kind of scary. In my nightmares, she makes Godzilla cry.

Still, it could be the most important show on TV.

Watch an hour of this thing, and you’ll get a pretty good grasp on American eating issues. There are few entertainment products that reflect our collective struggles – with dieting, with exercise, with money, with emotions – so accurately.

Most Biggest Loser contestants can’t cook. They don’t have the time or inclination to exercise. They blow mad cash on fried meals and diabetes medication. They take refuge in eating, lack self confidence, and fear failure. They’re terrified of dooming their children to a life of obesity and social persecution. They know if they don’t change their habits, they’ll die decades too early. Really, it’s a microcosm of our nationwide relationship with food, and it's rarely portrayed as thoroughly and sympathetically.

Beyond the cultural mirror, what further separates Biggest Loser from standard shows is almost everyone (maybe even Joelle) eventually triumphs. Through admittedly intense diet and exercise, contestants are consistently able to achieve vital personal transformations. They learn they’re CAPABLE of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. They CAN overcome their mental roadblocks. Their kids don’t HAVE to follow in their (formerly sizeable) footsteps.

For viewers at home, this is essential. If a Brown dad Ron, a 430-pound 54-year-old with multiple physical problems, can drop 15% of his body weight in seven weeks, anybody can.

What’s more, the cynicism and spectacle that usually accompanies reality TV is largely absent. Sure, there’s manipulation and crying (SO MUCH CRYING), and the before-and-after transformations make for good ratings. (I mean, look at these people.) But at its core, the show is meant to inspire. Contestants both challenge and cheer each other. They have rational discussions and create support systems within the mini-society of the Ranch. Most of ‘em even seem to like each other. For pop culture, it’s refreshing.

Ultimately, with hardly any exceptions (maybe Oprah), there are precious few entertainment products that manage to both educate and encourage. For a population that (like it or not) relies on television for health information, Biggest Loser is as almost as necessary as the AMA. No, Bob shouldn’t replace your doctor. But you get the idea. Give the show a shot, and it just might surprise you.


**Regarding the “freak” criticism, I agree to an extent. BL is exploitative, the same way Extreme Home Makeover is. Universally, the Losers are people in severe situations, and their stories and appearance are meant to merit sympathy, empathy, and maybe even a little revulsion. This season, they brought in Daniel, a sweet-as-pie 19-year-old who weighed almost 500 pounds. You could practically hear, “My god, he’s huge,” “How did he let it get that far?” and “That poor, poor kid” echoing through American living rooms. It’s undoubtedly meant to score viewers, and not quite fair to him. Still, he signed up for it knowing what would happen. It’s an interesting debate.

(Photos courtesy of MSNBC and Diets in Review.)

Tuesday Megalinks

So much good stuff today, but first – I had the opportunity to write for the Mushroom Council’s new blog, so head on over if you get the chance. There’s a short post followed up by a sweet recipe for stuffed mushrooms, courtesy of the fine folks at Cooks Illustrated.

Broke Grad Student: Festival of Frugality Singles Awareness Edition
This week’s roundup includes lots of candy hearts, CHG’s What the Great Depression Can Teach Us About Food and Frugality, and a stellar post by Mighty Bargain Hunter entitled Why Do Frugality Tips Suck So Badly?

Chow: 10 Ways to Save at the Grocery Store
There are a billion of these stories floating around the blogosphere right now, but I liked Chow’s attention to substitutions and size, as well as the superhelpful (one word!) Chowhound threads linked at the end. Those guys know their stuff, yo.

Chow: Cooking with Winter Ingredients
To be sung to the tune of “It’s the End of the World as We Know it” by REM:
That’s great it starts with a grapefruit, banana, kale and artichokes –
Escarole is not afraid
Eye of a meyer lemon, listen to a yellow onion
Turnip serves its own needs
Don’t misserve your own beets
Feed it up with chard, cabbage, kiwi, orange,
Rutabaga, rutabaga, rutabaga – rutabaga fine!

CNN: Living on Food Stamps
Sean Callebs is living on the government’s $176 food stamp allotment for an entire month, and blogging all about it. As a 5’9” woman with no children or discernible exercise plan, I could do this. As a 6’3” long distance runner, Sean might have some issues.

Epi-Log: Cheap and Indispensable
In which Epicurious gives it up for flexible cutting boards. They’re absolutely necessary in my kitchen, so I concur with the mad props. Pretty colors, too.

Get Rich Slowly: Quick Tips for Eating Organic
Lightning fast rundown of tricks, highlighted by copious links and a few informative words from Grist’s Lou Bendrick.

Gotta Little Space to Fill: Make it From Scratch Festival
Valentine recipes galore decorate this week’s festival, along with Leigh’s Kismet salad.

Healthy Eats: Top 5 Kitchen Tools for Cooking Healthy
Food Network’s new healthy cooking blog launched only a few weeks ago, but is already packed to the gills with good stuff. Among the more helpful posts is this short, sweet article on the glory of food scales, plane graters, and beyond.

The Kitchn: Eight Ways to Build Flavor
The best part about this piece? All those flavor builders involve almost no added fat or calories. Plus, they turn the taste to 11.

The Kitchn: Soup Swap – Have You Tried it?
Ooooooooooo. Neat twist on the average potluck dinner. We’ve been nuts about soup here lately, so this might be worth a shot.

The Kitchn: Vegan and Vegetarian Soup Recipes
Speaking of soups, here are 15 of the Kitchn’s meatless favorites. These guys are on a total roll lately.

New York Post: Golden Time for Arche$
McDonald’s sales went up more than 5% last month alone. Whoa. Sure, they’re everything that’s wrong with food policy, but, uh … invest now.

New York Times: In Kitchen, "Loser" Contestants Start From Scratch
Article of the week, right here. Much more on this in tomorrow’s post, but essentially, the whole shebang boils down to this: Biggest Loser contestants generally come into the ranch completely unable to cook for themselves. Learning how is the hardest part of the whole experience, except for when Jillian yells. She’s scary.

New York Times: Restaurants Stop Playing Hard to Get
Eateries – even the fancy ones – are courting customers like CRAZY in an attempt to stay afloat during the recession. There are deals and discounts to be had out there – it’s just a matter of research.

New York Times: Dieting? Put Your Money Where Your Fat Is
Need a fast way to lose weight? Bet your ultra-competitive coworkers, cousins, or BFFs that you can do it quicker than they can. For real, it’s helping a lot of folks drop extra poundage.

Prime Time Money: Wife Swap and Couponing Gone Wrong
I saw this episode! While the non-frugal couple could have trimmed waaaaay back, the frugal family took thrift about 37 steps over the boundary of acceptable, to the point where it was affecting their children’s social development. Good analysis of a strange situation.

Slashfood: Could You Live Without a Fridge?
Do you know anyone who’s trying this? I hope they have a spare igloo.

Smart Money: 5 Sites for Clipping Grocery Coupons
Super-nice breakdown of reliable couponing sites. Hardcore shoppers might already know about these, but for the uninitiated, it’s a treasure trove … OF KNOWLEDGE. (Thanks to Consumerist for the link.)

U.S. News and World Report: Coupon Master Saves $1,500 a Month
Interview with Ashley Nuzzo, a.k.a. Frugal Coupon Mom, in which she details how she banks all that extra cash. Her plan is difficult to follow if you don’t have the time, but there are decent tips within, nonetheless. (Thanks to Jezebel for the link.)

Wise Bread: Frugal Fitness - Twenty-Five and a Half Ways to Make it Happen
WOOOO! Linkfest ’09! (Seriously, this is good stuff. Click now.)

(Photos courtesy of Ultimate Coupons, Spinalist Tips, and Spinelli's Deli.)

White Bean and Tarragon Soup: On Saving

Among other things, The Boyfriend and I are scraping money together for a wedding, a house, and a bed that doesn’t make us look like Will Ferrell from Elf. It’s tough sometimes, because certain necessities go unpurchased for months. I’ve needed new bras for awhile now, and my favorite pair of Cons is finally starting to wear through. And we won’t even discuss my adventures in discount hair color. We’ll just shake our fists at the sky and curse genetics for giving us our first gray hairs at 17.

Despite universal cutbacks (especially food, natch), most of the money we save comes from one place: our apartment. For the space, the rent is ridiculously low - about half of what I’ve paid for other, smaller places. It allows us to stash several hundred extra dollars a month into savings, which makes a gigundo difference in our bankrolls.

Sadly, accommodations-wise, we get what we pay for.

A 110-year-old Brooklyn "brownstone" (sarcastic quotes intentional) that hasn’t been updated in 109 years, our building’s located on a major highway, one house away from the ongoing construction of a 10-story condo unit. The walls are cracking, the linoleum is permanently stained, and I’m fairly sure the basement is the seventh circle of Hell. Our bedroom is alternately freezing and sweltering. There is a constant stream of litter on our front steps, thrown there by assorted lazy-ass Brooklynites. We had a hole in our ceiling for six months before the landlord acknowledged our existence. In the fall, the construction site started attracting rats, which made their way into our backyard. It’s since been fixed, but … RATS?!?!?! Jeez. Honestly, I have no idea how we’ve never had an insect problem, but everyday I knock on a million pieces of wood that it stays that way.

Despite this, our place is relatively warm and cozy, and we do the best we can with what we have. Ten years of post-collegiate furniture and décor helps, as does a positive outlook. Occasionally, though …

Look. Yesterday around 1pm, our ceiling started to leak. The upstairs neighbors’ toilet overflowed, and they couldn’t plunge fast enough. This was nothing new, and it only required a few buckets and two hours of constant surveillance on our end, but the leak was in our BEDROOM this time, perilously close to our tiny mattress. I almost lost it.

Because some days? Like today? When my PMS is particularly bad? I want a nice place RIGHT NOW. I want insulated windows and plumbing that’s been replaced since the Coolidge administration. I want a front door that locks ALL the time, not just when I put my back into it. I want a KitchenAid standmixer, or at least the room to store it.

But if I want it, and I want to stay debt-free and financially solvent, I can’t have it right now. I can have it in two or three years, when our savings culminates in a Place of Our Own. And that’s okay. It really is. I still splurge. I’m not living a life of denial or deprivation. Instead, I’m living a life of simplicity and moderation with occasional frustrated outbursts. And in the longterm, that’s a good thing, rats notwithstanding.

Oh – and the nice part of our current apartment? No matter what it looks like, our future house is going to seem like Xanadu.

Anyway, on to today’s meal: White Bean and Tarragon Soup, a lovely, savory alternative to the usual Tuscan White Bean variety. If you should make it (and you should), a few things to know:

1. Since tarragon has a very subtle anise flavor, the soup does, too. I DESPISE anise, but it melds incredibly well, especially by the next day. So don’t fear if you, too, are among the haters. You’ll like this.

2. I used Progresso cannellini beans, which my spellcheck switched to “cannelloni” every time I typed it. Weird.

3. There’s a little more fat than usual in this soup, but I bet you could lose a teaspoon of butter and two teaspoons of olive oil and be just fine. Also, the 12+ grams of fiber per serving should make up for it.

And that's it.

White Bean and Tarragon Soup
Serves 4
Adapted from Serious Eats, who got it from The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater

2 19-oz cans white beans, drained and rinsed
3 bay leaves
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
5 scallions, roughly chopped
1 medium-sized carrot, peeled and finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock (or 2 cans)
1/4 cup fresh tarragon, roughly chopped

1) To a large pot or Dutch oven, add butter and olive oil. Heat 'em both over medium heat until butter melts and just starts foaming. Add scallions. Cook 2 or 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add carrots and garlic. Cook about 5 minutes, until softened, stirring occasionally.

2) Add beans and stock. Turn heat to high. Once stock starts boiling, add bay leaves and tarragon. Drop heat to medium-low. Simmer 15 or 20 minutes, "until the beans are falling apart." Then, with a stick blender, regular blender, food mill, or potato masher, mash/puree soup until it reaches your desired consistency. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve with "remaining chopped tarragon, a drizzle of olive oil, and fresh black pepper."

Approximate Calories, Fat, and Price Per Serving
328 calories, 9.1 g fat, $1.54

Calculations
2 19-oz cans white beans, drained and rinsed (I used Progresso cannellini beans): 899 calories, 0 g fat, $2.78
3 bay leaves: 0 calories, 0 g fat, $0.09
2 tablespoons butter: 201 calories, 22.6 g fat, $0.16
1 tablespoon olive oil: 118 calories, 13.4 g fat, $0.11
5 scallions: 40 calories, 0.3 g fat, $0.71
1 medium-sized carrot: 25 calories, 0.1 g fat, $0.10
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped: 4 calories, 0 g fat, $0.04
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock (or 2 cans): 20 calories, 0 g fat, $1.20
1/4 cup fresh tarragon, roughly chopped: ~6 calories, 0 g fat, $0.98
TOTAL: 1313 calories, 36.4 g fat, $6.17
PER SERVING (TOTAL/4): 328 calories, 9.1 g fat, $1.54

Quinoa Soup With Avocado and Corn: I Want to Go to There

Yesterday, Leigh threw out some much-deserved props for Tuesdays. Today, I’m giving it up for Thursdays. I LOVE Thursday nights, almost more than Sunday mornings. The work week’s almost over. I can have a glass of wine without feeling too guilty. And of course, 30 Rock and The Office are on.

I don’t watch crazy amounts of TV, but NBC’s Thursday nights are a must. It’s been that way since the ‘80s, when Bill Cosby took Rudy and Bud to see vaudeville genius Bill Irwin, and continued through the ‘90s, when Ross and Rachel sucked face in the rain outside of Central Perk. Now, Jim and Pam and Jack and Liz provide ample distraction from my work day, while Tracy and Dwight add a boatload of welcome absurdity.

And man, if last night don’t beat all. First, “IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY” and “That’s how I got Squeaky Fromme.” Then, Alec Baldwin’s abuela seduction and a guest appearance by Jon “Cartoon Pilot” Hamm. (Incidentally - WOW, that guy is handsome. I’d like to invite him to a pants party, if you catch my drift.) It was a dang near perfect hour, marred only slightly by 30 Rock’s finance guy interns. They reminded me greatly of an ex-boyfriend, from the excessive drinking to the hockey obsession. If they’d started playing James Bond video games, I might have had an aneurysm.

Anyway, all this Thursday night wonder went down while I was enjoying a lovely bowl of the Seattle Times’ Quinoa Soup with Avocado and Corn, suggested by CHG reader AJP. (Thanks, Alicia!) Quickly prepared and super-filling, it’s a faboo Mexican-tinged after-work soup, and pairs well with a Corona and/or a Liz Lemon one-liner. You might be tempted to leave out the lime, but don’t. It brightens everything up, and can be used in your beer afterward.

P.S. When you guys say the word “quinoa” (keen-wa) out loud, does it remind you of the song “Sadness” by ‘90s group Enigma? (The one with the monks?) To me, it always sounds like the main singer is saying, “Sad. Quinoa.” But I could be taking crazy pills.

Quinoa Soup With Avocado and Corn
Makes 4 servings
Adapted from J.M. Hirsch at The Seattle Times, who got it from Lorna Sass' Whole Grains for Busy People

4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup quinoa
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1/3 cup chunky salsa, to taste
1 ripe but firm Hass avocado, diced
Salt
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Lime wedges, for serving

1) In a large pot or Dutch oven, heat broth over high until it comes to a boil. Add quinoa. Drop heat to medium-high. Cook (still boiling) 15 minutes.

2) Add corn and salsa. Stir. When it comes back up to a simmer, kill the heat. Remove the pot from the burner. Add avocado. Stir gently. Salt and pepper to taste. Add cilantro. Stir again. Serve with lime wedges.

Approximate Calories, Fat, Fiber, and Price Per Serving
298 calories, 10 g fat, 7.2 g fiber, $1.25

Calculations
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth: 67 calories, 0 g fat, 0 g fiber, $1.33
1 cup quinoa: 636 calories, 9 g fat, 10 g fiber, $1.38
1 cup frozen corn kernels: 133 calories, 1.1 g fat, 3.9 g fiber, $0.40
1/3 cup chunky salsa, to taste: 23 calories, 0.2 g fat, 1.4 g fiber, $0.33
1 ripe but firm Hass avocado, diced: 322 calories, 29.5 g fat, 13.5 g fiber, $0.99
Salt: 0 calories, 0 g fat, 0 g fiber, $0.01
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro: 1 calories, 0 g fat, 0.1 g fiber, $0.49
Lime wedges, for serving: 10 calories, 0.1 g fat, 0 g fiber, $0.08
TOTAL: 1192 calories, 39.9 g fat, 28.9 g fiber, $5.01
PER SERVING (TOTAL/4): 298 calories, 10 g fat, 7.2 g fiber, $1.25