As Jillian Michaels says goodbye to her weekly yelling session, she wanted to go out in style in the last episode of Season 1(?) of "Losing It with Jillian." Once again, Jillian confronts cultural traditions of food that is a foreign concept to her.
African-Americans. Native Americans. And now Cubans. Nice to hear a white lady say your food traditions are "poison."
They aren't good for them, but "poison" is over the top; then again, can we expect any less from Jillian?
The only thing missing from this week's episode is a lack of a Subway commercial in the show. Then again, Jillian has her hands full.
The 9-year-old son is pre-diabetic, mom is overweight, and dad can't exercise until he has a sleep apnea test (which he fails massively).
David Sr. comes in at 328 pounds vs. a healthy weight of 180. Mom Carmen is at 170 pounds vs. a 109 lb. healthy weight. Dave Jr. is testing for pre-diabetes with insulin levels 3x the normal amount.
Jillian investigates as only she can, and determines that what they're eating is "poison" and that the culture needs to change. As if the Alvarez family represents all people of Cuban descent in the Miami area and elsewhere.
The visuals in the beginning tell a tale: the family is eating sugary treats, we see shots of the son in a bathing suit, and in an arbitrary moment, the camera shows the mother's butt as she bends down. All of this is why you bought a high definition TV set. The dad uses his RV to make donut runs.
As daughter Melissa, the only semi-healthy one, notes: "As a family, we eat really bad."
fried bread with syrup and sugar
extremely fatty cut of pork
white rice dripping in salt
yucca saturated in heaps of oil
Yea, that isn't good.
Jillian is part of a family get-together where she confronts the Cuban culture with the kids' grandparents. Jillian thinks she can convince an entire culture to change based on one dinner conversation where she says things such as the "food you eat is poison" and asking them how it would feel to bury your son.
After getting them to throw away 7 trash bags of food, Jillian wants them to move to eating beans and salad, but complains that they are moving at a glacial pace.
There is some good advice coming. Jillian takes them to the farmers market, a specific one on Lincoln Road in Miami, noting that it's "20 minutes from your house."
Dave Jr. didn't know what an avocado was. Jillian took that moment to show how you can switch out avocado for mayonnaise. Nice tip. The moment reminded me of Jamie Oliver's quiz to 6-year-olds on what a potato and tomato were. Still scary that a 9-year-old in Miami had never seen an avocado.
Jillian also showed that that a ceviche didn't have to use lard. She notes that the non-lard ceviche is "medicine" and the lard-one is "poison."
Then we get Jillian's wrapup on the joys of the farmers market:
"I love farmers markets for a million reasons. It's way cheaper than going to a supermarket... And you're also teaching your kids what healthy food should look like."
Assuming that Jillian doesn't shop much in a supermarket — maybe she is living off those Subway sandwiches — but farmers markets aren't "way cheaper." They are "way better" in lots of ways, and worth it on many levels, but you can usually find cheaper produce in a supermarket, even if it comes from thousands of miles away.
For Dave Jr.'s 10th birthday, Carmen shows the new way: pork loin with no lard, black beans, brown rice, and boiled yucca. By Jillian's logic, all people of Cuban descent will start to do it this way from now on.
At the family wrapup, Dave Jr.'s enthusiasm spills over, like the fat he used to carry.
"I can show the lunch lady how much grease are in the foods at school."
We find out that Dave Jr. lost 25 lbs., though they don't start with an opening weight — not a smart idea to show kids on a diet, especially on TV.
Season 1 of "Losing It with Jillian" was way more about exercise than food, and toward the end, most of the food advice was throwing food out. As the show incorporates a doctor, maybe Season 2 can work with a dietitian or nutritionist, someone who can be effective but not upstage Jillian, the star. TV help is pretty basic, but these families and many more like them need real help on several levels, nutrition being among them.
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