With the new segment “The Warehouse” proving unpopular with fans and the continued unpopularity of “The Walk” it is clear that the 2009 season of The Biggest Loser Australia will need some new segments with which to replace both sections of the show, if they hope to regain fans who have been switching off in disgust.

And what better person to invent a new segment for the show than someone random idiot on the internet, right?

What this particular idiot has come up with is an idea for a segment imaginatively titled “Cooking with the Fatties”. Obviously Fremantle may want to rename this, perhaps “Porking with the Pudgies” or “Baking with the Blimps” or possibly even something that isn’t offensive at all. You never know what those crazy producers will get up to.

The way “Cooking with the Fatties” would work is that each week the contestants on the show would be tasked with creating a couple of dishes to be prepared “to camera”, with one or more contestants acting in the role of “hosts” of a cooking show.

Ingredients available to the contestants could be selected beforehand, possibly even at “The Warehouse”, however there would be no “bad” option, only a choice between two healthy sets of ingredients. A set list of various herbs and spices would be provided to all contestants, with the selected ingredients comprising of things like steak, chicken breasts, fish, various fruit and vegetables, etc.

Contestants would explain how the food is prepared, from start to finish, along with the reasons for the inclusion of each ingredient in their meals.

During the team stage, this could be set up as a competitive challenge, with the staff nutritionist as the judge. Judging could be based both on the nutritional value of the dish as well as the taste and presentation. Some cross promotion could even come in here, with the host of Ready Steady Cook coming in for the taste and presentation judging, for example. An additional category, perhaps judged by Ajay, could be based on how well each team’s respective “host”/head chef performs their duties.

Rather than rewarding the winning team with game unbalancing rewards, prizes would instead be healthy cookware (supplied by a sponsor), gym equipment (sponsored) or more immediate treats, such as massages or the old “letters from home”.

Once the game moves out of the team stage, the cooking section would also become a solo affair, with each contestant being provided a set of ingredients and having to create one meal out of just those items, plus a set list of “common household ingredients” (ie; flour, butter/substitute, various basic fruit n veg) with the winner being decided based on nutritional content, ingenuity/originality and edibility.

The reasoning behind this segment is twofold:

Firstly, it would allow contestants a chance to express their personalities in a fun and interesting way, instead of only ever seeing them bitching and moaning about the exercise or other elements of the game.

Secondly, it would provide a lot of the information viewers are regularly begging for in regards to the nutritional content of foods and how to prepare healthy food that doesn’t taste like army boots.

Adding this segment to the show, particularly if it were to replace “The Walk”, would get the show closer to the original intent – helping people to lose weight either on the show or at home. There are no capricious elements involved and there can be no question of the result being chosen by the producers – with no game influencing rewards on offer there isn’t any motivation to do so.

What say you, the readers of the Recap? Does this sound like something that would interest you?