Pete Evans is doing it his way. Picture: Nicole Cleary Source: News Corp Australia
SO what is everybody’s (grass-fed) beef with Pete Evans? The celebrity chef has been lambasted, mocked and ridiculed since he spoke about his fondness for “activated almonds’’ three years ago.
Late last month headlines screeched about the My Kitchen Rules co-host throwing a hissy
fit and storming out of a Channel 7 launch, something he denies.
Even I Quit Sugar pioneer and fellow health nut Sarah Wilson distanced herself from him recently, saying she wished people would stop lumping her in the same basket and that Evans’ message was militant, ridiculous and (gasp) “anti-legume”.
Evans has had gut-wrenching upheavals with the Dietitians Association of Australia, autism groups, diabetic experts, the Federal Government’s guide to healthy eating and heart foundations in Australia, the UK, the US and Canada. The list goes on and on and on.
He’s also a popular pariah in the media — and ratings climb with every Pete-bashing yarn.
But Evans has a mission to take the paleo way to the world and says he knew from the get-go the ride was never going to be easy.
“I’ve been copping it for a while, but that’s OK,” Evans says, before adding a reality show staple ingredient: “It’s all part of the journey.
“It’s possibly because of someone with a public profile being so passionate. I don’t classify myself as a celebrity as such, but I’ve got a job in the public arena and I guess paleo doesn’t seem the norm these days for a lot of people.
“So it is an easy way to grab a headline, it’s an easy way to associate someone in the public and ridicule them a little bit because it doesn’t seem normal.”
Paleo, dubbed the caveman, stone-man or primal diet, essentially draws its core principles from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. In a nutshell, unprocessed foods such as grass-fed meat, free-range poultry, vegetables, fruits and nuts are in, while grains, refined sugars, dairy and, yes, legumes are out.
Pete munches on vegies and meat, but steers clear of legumes. Picture: Nicole Cleary Source: News Corp Australia
“The biggest misconception is that it is all about eating meat, which couldn’t be further from the truth,” Evans says. “Paleo is about eating small amounts of meat, an abundance of vegetables and embracing fat.
“We have been living in a society for the last 40 to 50 years or so where we have shunned fat. We are encouraged to eat vegetable oils, which are proving to not be the wisest choice for society.
“All you have to do is look at the health of the nation to see that maybe to heed that advice is actually causing us harm. If you dig down to research you will see it is completely misleading, completely false and that there is a better way to fuel our bodies, which is what paleo is.
“I’m in a unique position with my public profile to accelerate it and get it out to a wider audience.”
So why the low boiling point?
Evans says he’s not one to start a fight, but he will stand his ground, “especially if there are lies being told, or misinformation because the public deserves to hear the truth”.
“If you go back through the timeline of me talking out about this, each and every time I’ve stood my ground because a media article is slamming a paleo way of life. It has never been the other way around.
“I have never issued a press release to attack an organisation. What has happened is there have been organisations which have gone to the media and publicly slammed paleo lifestyle. So much so the Dietitians Association of Australia issued a press release saying, ‘Don’t go the paleo way’.
“So all of a sudden we have all the newspapers in the country being fed a press release from an organisation and then they start the stories slamming paleo.”
Evans took the nutrition national watchdog to task, biting back online and using his 600,000-plus social media following to question the DAA’s agenda after it warned Australians off paleo as being “potentially dangerous” in July last year.
“Their press release was fantastic. It said it was too hard and too expensive, which meant it was dangerous,” he says. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out something is a bit askew when they say something is hard and potentially expensive. How do they get dangerous out of it?
“I just stood up and said, ‘It’s not hard’ It’s actually simple and I’ve got 10-year-old kids who can cook the food. And it is not expensive because the research shows that people who adopt this way of life after one year are actually paying less on their grocery bills per week and they’re cutting down on their medication, becoming more productive, not going to the doctors so much.
“They are also in a little bit of a bind because these organisations are funded by multinational food corporations and if you eat paleo, you make those food items redundant in your life.
“Would I say it’s a conspiracy? No. I tend to believe there is nobody pulling the strings. Do I believe that money is involved somewhere that clouds people’s judgment? Definitely. Or is money involved where people potentially have their hands tied through different organisations and affiliations? Definitely yes.”
Pete and Manu Feildel on My Kitchen Rules. Source: Supplied
Having done the interview rounds with 41-year-old Evans since he began his role as the straight-talking co-host with Manu Feildel on My Kitchen Rules in 2010, one can’t help but notice he has certainly, well, evolved.
While the weight loss and healthy glow is a given, Evans just seems happier. Maybe it’s finding love with his partner, Kiwi model and reality star Nic Robinson, four years ago. Maybe it’s just paleo.
“It’s my journey, too,” he says. “Everybody goes through their experiences and learns different things as they go through life. Everything I have done in the past has led me to where I am now.
“I’ve always been interested in health and nutrition and 20 years ago I was very immersed in it when I was living in Melbourne. I was looking at how you can you fuel your body for health. I was a vegetarian and a vegan for a while. It didn’t work for me and I became a bit disillusioned with health. I was doing everything and I thought, ‘Why isn’t this working for me?’
“I was looking after my body, but I was suffering from ill health. It wasn’t until about 3½ years ago that my partner Nic was reading a book called Primal Body, Primal Mind (by paleo expert Nora Gedgaudas) and we started eating healthy food again.
“We started to look after ourselves, I was cooking brown rice and mueslis and things, but I still didn’t feel great. My skin had problems, my digestion had problems, I was bloated and overweight. And I thought, ‘What do I do now?’
“I read that book and it was like a light bulb.”
The father of daughters Chilli, 10, and Indii, 8, is busy. In just over a week our interview keeps getting rearranged as he jumps from continent to continent. First to the US giving his Learn To Cook the Paleo Way motivational courses, next the UK to interview a woman taking paleo into schools for kids with behavioural issues for his documentary Food is Medicine, then Australia for the launch of MKR and family downtime on his NSW property.
He is also here promoting his new 10-week online health and fitness program, The Paleo Way, a long-term vision he has with fiancee Nic. He popped the question in New York last year.
Having slowly removed himself from his many restaurant ventures, Evans says his focus is now on re-educating people on health and nutrition in the hope of a grassroots flow-on effect.
“My vision is not so much individual health because I already know that works.
“If you do the 10-week program and follow it properly, you are going to come out of it a different person, that is a given.
“I know that the physical and health transformations happen. But for me the whole goal of this, my vision, is what is farmed in this country will be changed, through the people that adopt this.
“They will demand their beef is grass fed and that their fruits and vegetables are grown without chemicals.
“The way that’s going to happen is more and more people adopting this way of life. Now what that will do is shift and change the health of the soil, the health of the planet and also start to really influence communities. If you want to think about it on a bigger scale, our whole country is based on foods that we do not need to consume.
“In the Paleo Way of Life, we don’t eat grains, but what are some of our biggest crops sources or farms in the country? Wheat farms. You don’t have to eat sugar but what are some of our biggest farming resources in the country? Sugar. We do not need to eat dairy or beef that is not grass-fed. But what are some of the largest industries in our country? Dairy. Beef.
“How does that work for a country whose economy is based on these industries? Now I don’t have the answers for that. But that’s why you will never see paleo promoted from government sources, because how can they turn around and say you don’t need grains, sugars or dairy.”
Pete Evans isn’t worried about his critics. Picture: Nicole Cleary Source: News Corp Australia
Cutting through the fervent passion, Evans still manages to have a laugh at himself.
Eyes sparkling, he recently insisted, “Yes I swallow” after being grilled for eating the MKR contestants’ carb, sugar and dairy-filled three-course dinners on the Channel 7 reality show.
“No I don’t purge afterwards. It makes up about 1 per cent of my yearly diet,” he says.
And for the record he doesn’t eat activated almonds any more either. Why? Because he doesn’t need to.
“The further I go along, the simpler I eat. So I now eat a really basic diet and you don’t need to snack any more, you’re not hungry. Back then I was still craving snacks.”
He thinks the tide is slowly moving towards a more positive attitude to paleo, but regardless he is in it for the long haul.
“I follow my gut in everything I do and at the moment it feels like the right path,” he says. “People see this and they’re just fearful. I became stronger from it. Without bringing the ego into it I said, ‘I’ve got to learn from this and how can I deal with it better’.
“So I focus more on the positive stories, but as I said, I’m not going to retreat from it.
“I taught my daughters when they were learning how to surf and to jump off a rock. When the waves come, their first instinct was to run away and I said, ‘Never do that, that’s when you trip, you fall over, you hurt yourself’.
“If the waves come, stay strong and when the waves go you step forward, so you are prepared and stay grounded. That’s what I’ve been teaching myself.
“Don’t try and fight against it, just let it come, because it will wash away. And all of a sudden, keep moving forward until you are right up in its face.”
It seems fitting in our photoshoot that Evans reaches for his mobile to get into the mood, pulling Taylor Swift from his playlist.
“I love Taylor,” he laughs, cranking it up.
“Cause the players gonna play, play, play
“And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate
“Baby, I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
“I shake it off, I shake it off.”
And that’s exactly what Pete Evans plans to do.
For more information on Pete Evans’ The Paleo Way 10-week activation program, visit thepaleoway.com
Have you tried the paleo diet like the following celebs? Tell us what you think below.
Celebrity devotees
GWYNETH PALTROW
The Goop blogger claims she has more energy and looks great after eliminating coffee, dairy, sugar and everything processed from her diet. She says she also aims to feed her children paleo-style meals.
UMA THURMAN
A raw food guru, this butt-kicking Kill Bill character (more hunter, less gatherer) maintains a strict health regimen by following a paleo-esque lifestyle.
Gwyneth Paltrow. Picture: Jason Kempin Source: Getty Images
Uma Thurman. Picture: Angela Weiss Source: Getty Images
JESSICA BIEL
Known for her bombshell body, Mrs Timberlake credits a clean and green paleo diet, along with a strict exercise regimen for her A-list rig.
MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY
The actor and one-time People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” says he commits to eating paleo 90 per cent of the time.
Matthew McConaughey. Picture: Kevork Djansezian Source: Getty Images
Jessica Biel. Picture: Jason Merritt Source: Getty Images
MEGAN FOX
The foxy Transformers star credited paleo for her banging post-baby body. She often speaks out on the topic, telling women to ban dairy from the lives because it’s hard on their hormones.
KOBE BRYANT
Although not a strictly paleo dieter, the basketball star focuses on eating only pasture-fed produce, limiting his intake of carbohydrates, and erasing sugar and processed foods from
his diet.
Kobe Bryant. Picture: Alex Brandon/AP Source: AP
Megan Fox. Picture: News Corp Source: News Corp Australia
MILEY CYRUS
Gluten and lactose allergies saw Cyrus give carbs the flick. She opts for a paleo grain-free, dairy-free policy.
SHAILENE WOODLEY
The rising star has oft-talked about her diet and ideology, saying she tries to adopt an “indigenous” diet aimed around the concept of “re-wilding”.
Shailene Woodley. Picture: Jason Merritt Source: Supplied
Miley Cyrus. Picture: Michael Buckner/Getty Source: Getty Images
