Isabel of Espero

The Episode's Content

This episode is full of FOOD. It begins with Digit whipping up a salad for the kids. He emphasizes that a good meal should be "like a seesaw: well-balanced." He goes further to show that he means using all 5 food groups.

He adds the apples, multigrain croutons, pine nuts, and cheese cubes to the bowl and adds olive oil. It's a healthy salad that I'd imagine would taste pretty good. I'd have opted for shredded cheese, but that's just me.

Unfortunately for the kids, they're called away to investigate strange happenings at Castleblanca. They end up at a restaurant called Bogey's with food of a questionable quality. None of the group likes it.

Well, Inez seems to love it.

Upon investigation, they learn that Hacker is the one running the restaurant and that the food is just a bite of potato that has been heavily processed. It's "Not real food."

Anyways, this culminates in the kids showing a video of how the food is made to the borgs in the restaurant, and they're disgusted at first. Then Hacker brings out ribs for them to sample, and everyone forgets the video because they're delicious.

Digit then challenges Hacker to a cookoff where he wins by making this abomination...

Anyways, Digit wins and the day is saved. Digit opens a healthy restaurant and everyone eats good food together.

So why does this episode infuriate me so much?

Well, to put it simply, it's the food.

Problem One: The episode goes out of it's way to make meat and potatoes seem unhealthy.

Until the last scene, every bit of healthy food shown is vegetarian, and every unhealthy food shown is either purely meat-based or a french fry.

This isn't a bad thing by itself. There's a much better episode in Season 1 where Digit cooks, and they take a plant-based approach with those meals too(Maybe I'll analyze that one too).

The problem is that every single unhealthy dish is meaty.

The healthy food shown:

The junky food shown:

Problem 2: The healthy food isn't exactly a proper or filling meal

The episode has Digit order a "Cheese, crackers, and hummus platter" as a healthy dinner for all four of them. Look at this.

This is their entire dinner after eating a non-nutritious lunch. This might be a fine dinner for a single person who has eaten a lot that day, but not for four(or even three since Inez doesn't eat any) hungry people. It's whole foods, yes, but it isn't a proper meal for growing kids. It's a snack at best.

Digit also calls the crackers "bread" as soon as they have to start teaching the health lesson. It's a switch from something considered more processed to something more "natural". It's small, but it's there.

Problem 3: Character assassination

Oh Inez, what did they do to you...

Inez is the only character that likes Hacker's food, and she's the only one to experience any negative effects from eating it. All four of the main characters eat the junky food, but only Inez gets affected? Really?

You can't even say it's because the kids ate real food in the hotel to balance it out. Inez is already sick at that point, so they all should be sick.

Also Matt and Jackie don't like the food? Not even a bit? Digit's supposed to be a foodie, so it's fine for him to recognize that something is off. For a group of 11-year-olds, they would realistically enjoy it somewhat.

The episode needed an example of what unhealthy food can do to your body. I think what happened here is they wanted to show this, but couldn't make all of the protagonists sluggish. They need energy to progress the episode. Inez ends up being the sacrifice for this episode, despite doing NOTHING to deserve this treatment.

Problem 4: That fucking omelet

So I have actually re-created the omelet in real life, with a few tweaks.

It was an interesting taste, but not something I will ever make again. Just think about it. Banana, egg, cheese, raw Brussel sprouts, and bread. It's "balanced" according to the standard set by the episode, but it just isn't some jaw-dropping meal that would beat Hacker.

If someone tried to serve plain raw Brussel sprouts in Chopped, it would not fly. I can prove the Brussel sprouts are uncooked too.

The uncooked ones are dark green, like the ones in that zomborg's stand at the beginning.

The cooked ones are much lighter in color

And you never see them get cooked. They just sit on the counter until it's time to plate the food.

The meal just isn't good. Realistically, if you served Hacker's processed-to-be-good food next to Digit's disaster omelet with raw sprouts and bread slices, Hacker would win. Digit should have only won the health portion. He would have lost the minute the judge bit into that raw, unseasoned Brussel sprout.

So what happened here?

This episode is a prime example of "writing yourself into a corner." The staff clearly wanted to be inclusive when they wrote it, which is why the vegetarian meal aspect is there. They keep this going to the extent that the only proteins provided are eggs and beans.

Digit was panicking because he couldn't remember the proportions of each food group, when he should have been panicking because of how few proteins are provided.

And about those proportions, they actually interpret the chart incorrectly. The episode uses this:

Which seems to be inspired by the USDA MyPlate chart:

The proportions are different, so I'm guessing that they changed it because they couldn't get approval to use the USDA chart. MyPlate is intended to be used as a DAILY guide for eating. You aren't supposed to use it for every meal of the day.

This episode has made such a point that every meal should be completely balanced that it causes problems. Digit has to make his dish 1/4 fruit, so the banana goes in the omelet. Eggs and fruit can pair well, some omelets are served with an orange slice. One orange slice isn't 1/4 of the dish though, so they can't do that.

I also think they were having to follow strict guidelines with this episode. Every unhealthy dish is pure meat, minus the french fries. I think that they were told to not put any vegetables in the unhealthy meals to avoid teaching kids that veggies could be bad. The french fries got to stay because despite being veggies, they're already seen as unhealthy.

They also do not show any healthy meaty foods until the last scene, once the lesson has been solidified. My guess is that this was a guideline too. Don't make the healthy food look anything like the unhealthy food to avoid causing confusion. Once the lesson is learned, the Brussel sprouts can have bacon and the kids can eat meatballs.

Okay, I think that's all of my nitpicks covered.

So what would I do differently?

First, I would have all of the kids become slugish after leaving Hacker's factory. Realistically, only Digit would recognize something off with the food and only eat a few bites. Cooking is supposed to be Digit's area of expertise, so giving him a solo moment to shine would make sense.

Then I'd make the cooking contest a three-part thing. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This would eliminate the need to add fruit in a dish it doesn't belong in.

Finally, I would leave the Temu MyPlate chart out entirely. As long as the importance of variety is there, it's not needed. The time saved by excluding it would make space for the other dishes.

Final thoughts:

Healthy eating is HARD to cover in kid's shows. You have to be really careful how you present the healthy and unhealthy foods. No matter what choice you make, you are going to alienate a good chunk of the audience. Food is nuanced, and it's impossible to truly capture that in a 30 minute episode.

This is why most media aimed at kids tend to stick to the basic "Candy and soda are bad, fruits and veggies are good" messaging. This episode tries to go more in depth than that. To give them credit, they really did try.

Healthy eating isn't some black and white thing. There are people who don't eat meat, people allergic to dairy, people with celiac disease, and even more. Every person's healthy diet is going to look a little different, and many should not be using MyPlate as a guide. It also feels kind of scummy to demonize processed food so much when America has so many people living in food deserts.