Food Gatherers and “The Biggest Loser”

On Nov. 25, Thanksgiving eve, NBC will air a special show that catches up with the lives of former contestants of “The Biggest Loser,” a series in which people compete to lose weight. Pete Thomas of Ypsilanti was a contestant in the show’s 2005 season, and he’ll be among those featured in the upcoming special.

What you probably won’t see on that show is a segment shot on a cold October morning at Food Gatherers. An NBC film crew spent a couple of hours taking footage of Thomas at the Food Gatherers warehouse and gardens off of Dhu Varren Road, on Ann Arbor’s north side. The segment was originally intended to be part of a broader profile of Thomas, who dropped 140 pounds during and after his appearance on “The Biggest Loser.”

But a couple of weeks after the shoot, NBC told Food Gatherers that their segment was being cut from the show – instead, producers planned to highlight a marathon that Thomas going to run. The Food Gatherers spot might air on NBC.com, but that’s uncertain.

The Chronicle got to tag along during the Food Gatherers portion of the shoot. Here’s a look at what goes into making a reality-ish show – even the parts that might never make it on TV.

The Prep

Pete Thomas hooked up with Food Gatherers through Feeding America, a national nonprofit that’s partnered with “The Biggest Loser” in the Pound for Pound Challenge to encourage weight loss while raising money for food pantries. Thomas wanted to include a community service aspect as part of his profile for the upcoming NBC special, and Feeding America suggested Food Gatherers, which is part of Feeding America’s national network of food banks.

There was considerable planning by Food Gatherers staff before the NBC crew arrived on the morning of Oct. 16. The nonprofit wanted to include as much variety as possible, highlighting different aspects of their enterprise and making sure their mission was clear. They also needed to include things that Thomas could actually do – as opposed to just sitting around talking.

The Chronicle had previously encountered the organizational prowess of Food Gatherers, so it was no surprise to see it on display again. A detailed, two-page handout prepared for the film crew listed the names and titles of Food Gatherers staff and volunteers, a bullet-point list of facts about the nonprofit, and a synopsis of activities to be filmed.

They also made sure that nearly every person who’d appear in the segment was wearing a T-shirt or cap with the Food Gatherers logo. Extra Ts were ready for anybody who needed one, neatly stacked on a table in the nonprofit’s conference room – and a cap with the ubiquitous Food Gatherers carrot was flagged with a sticky note, saving it for Pete Thomas.

The nonprofit’s executive director, Eileen Spring, was out of the country on this day, so the point person for Food Gatherers was Missy Orge, director of outreach and training.

The Shoot: Getting Started

The shoot was set to begin at 9 a.m. and Pete Thomas arrived first, at about 9:20, with his assistant, Lamar Amos, who is also from Ypsilanti. Amos carried what looked like a case for a musical instrument – when someone asked what was in it, he reported that it contained a large poster of Thomas, taken before his dramatic weight loss.

In fact, it’s hard to imagine that Thomas was ever overweight – a tall, strapping man with the confidence and charisma of someone who’s comfortable in his own skin, Thomas now makes his living as a motivational speaker and personal weight loss coach.

After introductions, he hands The Chronicle his business card, which also has “before” and “after” photos of himself. In the “before” image, he’s shirtless and frowning – stretch marks are clearly visible on his belly.

By 9:30 the film crew has arrived: the producer, production assistant, cameraman, assistant cameraman and sound mixer. Everyone gathers in the conference room, and Missy Orge reviews the activities that they have planned for the shoot, which include picking food in the garden and preparing a dish with the harvested food. “We’re going to insert you into all the parts,” she tells Thomas.

The producer, Ian Golding, announces that they’ll start with the outside shots. “We want to do a walk up – who would Pete meet when he’s coming in?”

That would be Missy – but first, there’s the question of outerwear.

Thomas needs a coat that’s suitable for working in a garden, so Dan Calderone, the farm manager for Food Gatherers, brings in two options.The first one Thomas tries on is a tight fit, just a little too small for his long arms. But Golding likes it: “You look good in that – you look thin!”

The second one is too large and a little more worn – but clearly more comfortable, and Thomas opts for that one.

Golding, however, persuades him to reconsider, with an eye toward how it will look on camera. The small one it is.

Before they begin, Kris Bagley, the crew’s sound mixer, hooks up Thomas with a wireless microphone. He’ll do the same with everyone who appears on camera, and assures them that he always turns off the mic when they aren’t being filmed.

This becomes  particularly important when people need to take a bathroom break.

With the microphone hooked up and the coat selected, it’s time for the walk-up shot. The idea is to see Thomas walk from the parking lot to the front door of Food Gatherers.

It’s a simple thing. Even so, they shoot several takes.

The outside shot needs no extra lighting. But the next segment is shot inside, in the nonprofit’s reception area.

Cameraman Neal Gallagher and his assistant, David Walsh, set up some lights on a tripod, aiming them at the ceiling to add an indirect glow and augment the room’s existing fluorescent lights. Thomas asks Gallagher how much his camera costs. About $40,000, Gallagher replies.

Golding directs Thomas to enter the front door, greet the receptionist, Marz Roehrig, and ask to see Orge. “Let’s have Dan come into this shot too,” Golding says, referring to Calderone. Orge asks, “Am I introducing them, or does he already know Pete?”

In the background, Nicole Ferris, the production assistant, is getting people to sign releases – forms giving NBC permission to use the footage that’s being shot of them. Thomas also takes a moment to pull aside The Chronicle and give some advice – always make sure to stay behind the cameraman, he says, so that you won’t be in the way during a shoot. This advice comes in handy, though it’s not always easy to anticipate where the camera will pan, especially outdoors. We head outside.

Harvesting Harvested Squash

The Gathering Farm is a half-acre, fenced-in garden that lies on Food Gatherers’ property, in front of their warehouse and office building. The food grown there is distributed to the nonprofit’s network of food pantries in this region, with the goal of providing healthier, fresh food to low-income residents. Food grown in the garden is also sent to the community kitchen at the Delonis Center, where it’s prepared and served to people at the homeless shelter.

All of this is a narrative that’s worked into scenes throughout the shoot. It’s a story that Food Gatherers staff knows well, and Golding compliments them on how natural they are in their interactions on camera.

But some things aren’t quite so natural. Because of the threat of frost, all of the butternut squash in the Gathering Farm has been harvested. However, Calderone has a bushel basket full of the vegetable, and suggests placing the squash back into the garden so that it can be “harvested.”

Golding agrees to this, but cautions them: “We need to make it as close to real as possible, because anyone will know that squash just isn’t sitting on the ground.” At this, Thomas quips: “So squash comes from a field? Hey, I grew up in the city – I thought squash came from Aisle 2!”

Calderone carefully re-populates a section of the garden with squash, making sure the stems are covered with the dried vines on the ground. He shows Thomas how to use a knife to make a fake cut, in an upward motion that appears to quite realistically sever the stem from the vine. Golding seems satisfied. Shooting begins.

Next Up: Carrot Way Carrots

Though executive director Eileen Spring is partial to potatoes, carrots are the signature vegetable for Food Gatherers. Their road off of Dhu Varren is called Carrot Way. Concrete carrot planters line the entrance to their office building, and an oversized stuffed carrot is a fixture in their lobby. And, as it happened, there were still unharvested carrots in a garden behind the Food Gatherers warehouse – that’s where the crew headed next.

Neal Gallagher, the cameraman, admires the design of the warehouse’s water diversion system. When it rains, runoff from the gutters flows down pipes and is collected in large blue barrels at intervals along the entire length of the building. It’s unclear whether any of that information was discussed on camera – during the shoot, we’re too far away to catch any of the conversation.

When the carrots are pulled, dumped into a box, and loaded onto a cart, everyone heads back into the warehouse for the final part of the segment – food prep and cooking.

In the Kitchen: Wash Your Hands

Normally, food from the gardens is prepared at the kitchen of the Delonis Center, but to do so for this filming would have entailed some logistical gymnastics. For one, it would have required the crew to travel to yet another location. It also would have meant delaying the actual lunch served at Delonis.

Instead, Food Gatherers staff set up a “test kitchen” in the warehouse, and asked two of the cooks who work at Delonis – Mark Bowden and Sam White – to help with food prep. Scott Roubeck, special projects coordinator for Food Gatherers, was also on hand in his white chef’s jacket, walking Thomas through the paces of a recipe for squash casserole.

The first shot showed Orge and Thomas coming into the kitchen from the warehouse. Orge introduced Thomas to the kitchen staff, but vetoed shaking hands – Bowden and White were wearing latex gloves, as they’d already been doing food prep. Noting that she was chair of the food safety council for Feeding America, Orge tells Thomas he needs to wash his hands and put on gloves, too.

Most of the prep work has been done in advance – bowls of cubed squash, onions and carrots are sitting on the counter. For the camera, Roubeck shows Thomas how to peel the squash and cut it into cubes. Off to the side, White has been chopping onions and winces as the vapors sting his eyes.

Roubeck explains how the casserole is made – with eggs, lowfat cheese and mayonnaise – while Thomas asks questions about how many meals are served at Delonis – 50 for breakfast every day, 120 for lunch on weekdays, and 150-175 for dinner daily.

The dish goes into the oven, which requires a bit of finesse. It turns out that this particular oven doesn’t work, so the actual dish has been pre-baked in an oven in a different part of the building. Orge brings in the pre-cooked casserole – it smells great – and off-camera, it’s put into the non-functional oven. On-camera, Roubeck then removes the finished casserole and serves it up.

At this point Gallagher, the cameraman, notices that the baked casserole has carrots as well as squash, but carrots hadn’t been among the ingredients of the dish they’d put into the oven. Orge offers to pick out the carrots. This is deemed unnecessary – “Just don’t mention it,” Gallagher tells Roubeck.

As Thomas samples the finished product, he remarks, “This is really good – I’m surprised!” Earlier, he had joked that he was hoping they’d make pumpkin pie, even though he knew baked squash was healthier.

Coda: The Rest of the Story

After finishing up at Food Gatherers, the crew was headed over to Thomas’ home in Ypsilanti, then to do a workout at Eastern Michigan University, where Thomas teaches a fitness course. They also planned to shoot Thomas playing basketball – it was a passion he had given up when he gained so much weight, Thomas explains. “You just weren’t that good,” jokes his assistant, Lamar Amos.

In a phone interview several days later, Eileen Spring – the nonprofit’s executive director – said it was generous of Thomas to include them, and that it had been an exciting experience for the staff and volunteers, even given the news that it likely wouldn’t air.

The connection to Thanksgiving has special resonance for Food Gatherers, Spring said. It was 21 years ago during the week of Thanksgiving that the nonprofit made its first food rescue run, picking up food from six local businesses with a van that Paul Saginaw of Zingerman’s borrowed from Moveable Feast.

Finally, for those readers who are looking for one extra dish to serve during their own Thanksgiving feast, here’s the recipe for squash and carrots that was prepared during the filming at Food Gatherers.

Food Gatherers’ Squash and Carrot Casserole

• 3 cups butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 cup peeled carrots, cut into ½ inch “coins”
• 1 small yellow onion, diced
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (low-fat is fine)
• 12-15 whole wheat crackers, crumbled
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 TBSP light mayonnaise

Heat oven to 400°F. Boil squash and carrots until tender (about 15 minutes). Rinse and drain. Mix squash, carrots and remaining ingredients. Sprinkle more cheese on top if desired. Spoon into baking dish (8 inch square or 9×13 inch rectangle). Bake 45 minutes to 1 hour. Eat with vigor.