We were wrong about Paleo Pete
Pete Evans makes some questionable claims, but he is right about reducing carbohydrates, eliminating grains and packaged foods, and increasing healthy fats, finds Amy Nelmes Bissett.
Bonkers, crazy and seriously dangerous are all words regularly used to describe Australian New Age foodie Pete Evans. These days, he’s better known as Paleo Pete, due to his one-man mission to cheerlead the caveman diet into the mainstream.
The celebrity chef, author and MKR judge has become a bit of an eye-roll figure in the world of nutrition and that’s thanks to him punctuating the past few years with a string of seriously ill-advised comments.
There have been quite a few Paleo Pete facepalm moments. From the utterly odd – like criticising sunscreen – to the downright dangerous, such as giving babies high-sodium bone broth. And let’s not forget his quirky comments about camel’s milk.
But despite his distinct inability to keep wacky diet hypotheses in his head, especially during interviews, Pete seems to be clawing back his reputation with his latest offering.
In late April, his documentary, The Magic Pill, hit Netflix.
Naturally, his very-verbal critics were ruffled by its claims that essentially choosing a diet that eliminates grains and processed foods and instead focuses on healthy fats and protein will reverse chronic illness.
After all, the doco does reek of the paleo propaganda we’ve become accustomed to from Evans. Australian Medical Association president Michael Gannon even dubbed it ‘‘hurtful, harmful and mean’’ after it claimed that a change in diet could even cure cancer.
And while many will, and have, written off the documentary, there is a growing camp of health professionals who think that Pete’s core diet message – away from the bonkers soundbites of the past few years – is the key to solving the world’s obesity problems and chronic illnesses.
Paleo is essentially a diet based on our ancestor’s hunter-gatherer lifestyle from the Paleolitic Era, or Old Stone Age period. Corn, wheat, rice, dairy, legumes and vegetable oils, alcohol and refined sugars are all on the no-go list.
Dr Caryn Zynn is a dietician with 21 years’ experience, a senior lecturer at Auckland University of Technology and a vocal supporter of the low carbohydrate, high fat movement. She believes that Pete’s message is spot on.
Zynn tells Stuff, ‘‘Pete always gets in trouble for the things he does but this particular piece was an unbiased, really good account because what he shows in the documentary is what is happening right now.
‘‘There’s a movement happening and it’s happening from the ground up.
‘‘For example, there are studies that show that a change in diet doesn’t just manage diabetes, it reverses it. And that’s potent.’’
Virta Health is a medical clinic based in San Francisco that has, through a string of randomised clinical trials, proven that eating whole foods can reverse type 2 diabetes without any help from expensive pills or potions but purely from what is served on a plate.
And this is making the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies twitchy.
‘‘Do these companies really want these diseases to be pretty much reversed with diet? I would say no,’’ exclaims Zynn.
And that change in diet is focusing on a health plan that reduces carbohydrates, eliminates grains and packaged foods, and increases healthy fats, such as coconut oil, avocados and nuts.
It’s the core of the paleo diet, but also the research-backed Mediterranean eating plan and the celebrity diet de jour, the LCHF, which stands for low carb, high fat.
Each of these diets, especially Evans’ paleo, highlight that the current guidelines for servings of carbs and fat are New Zealand is outdated.
Currently, Kiwis are supposed to pack in six servings of grains a day, but just two servings of low-fat foods, like a glass of skim milk or reduced fat yoghurt.
It’s a recommendation that rings of the outdated understanding that we should fear fat, which was a guideline first introduced in the 1950s as a way to battle heart disease and manage weight problems.
But many studies have since proven, including the large-scale 2006 Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study, that a low fat diet doesn’t work. Out of the 48,835 women who participated in the WHI trial, there were no clear benefits for reducing heart disease, strokes or cancer.
Instead, many health professionals in the nutritional world believe that we’re now seeing the repercussions of ditching fat and moving to a more carb-based diet.
There are 250,000 Kiwis with diabetes in New Zealand, a number that increases year-on-year, costing this country $1.3 billion in medication each year.
‘‘Look at the health status of the world. We have a burgeoning diabetes epidemic, we are in a state obesity-wise and we have a lot of chronic diseases and autoimmune diseases and all sorts of problems,’’ explains Zynn.
‘‘Some will say our current guidelines aren’t working, and others, the critics, will say it’s purely because people aren’t following the guidelines at all. Either way, it’s not working.’’
But can a change of diet really cure cancer? Zynn says that there’s a growing understanding that diet is the best way to reverse the chronic illnesses that are plaguing the western world, but she understandably keeps a distance from claims about curing cancer.
‘‘Fat is the new black,’’ she says instead, in reference to the backflip on healthy fats and their health benefits.
Nutritionist Julianne Taylor, who works out of a Grey Lynn clinic in Auckland, now treats all of her clients with a paleo-style diet, admitting that the results are much greater than any other health plan.
But she believes that paleo, which first came to
‘‘Kids die on a vegan diet, kids don’t die on a paleo diet. Nobody’s died from not having bread.’’
Julianne Taylor, nutritionist
popularity in the early 2000s, is effective as it’s essentially about eating whole foods and that true paleo isn’t about focusing on low carb but eliminating grains.
‘‘Paleo isn’t necessarily about being low carb,’’ she explains. ‘‘You could be eating a lot of root vegetables. But it’s about eliminating sugar, processed foods, removing all those additives and highly refined grains, and not buying cakes and biscuits from the supermarket.
‘‘And it doesn’t have to be an extreme diet, but a framework of your normal eating plan. Veganism is actually an extreme diet. Kids die on a vegan diet, kids don’t die on a paleo diet. Nobody’s died from not having bread.’’
But that’s not stopped the Heart Foundation, The British Dietetic Association, Dieticians Association Australia and the Australian Medical Association and many more in slamming paleo as an extreme and dangerous diet.
It’s something that hasn’t stopped Evans’ crusade over the past decade. ‘‘My inbox is full of amazing stories of Kiwis and Aussies who have overhauled their lives as a result of following the paleo way,’’ he said in an interview in 2016.
So, is his passion for paleo finally seeming a little less bonkers? The health professionals seem to think so.