Charlie Pickering Dug Into The Intricate Layers Of Bullshit Around The Paleo Diet On ‘The Weekly’ Last Night
There are more than a few.
On Sunday night, competing networks Channel Seven and Nine aired almost identical segments on one of the latest — but also technically oldest — diets, the paleo diet. For those still somehow able to avoid the fad’s almighty publicity reach, paleo is based on foods eaten back in caveman days like meats, vegetables and legumes, and the ever-enticing bone broth. Its advocates have copped a bucket load recently over defying health organisations’ recommendations and for making outrageous health benefit claims. As you’d expect from ABC’s The Weekly by now, host Charlie Pickering calls bullshit on the fad — and on Seven’s short-sighted, glowing assessment.
Seven compared the health of veteran journalist Mike Willesee — whose ordinary diet consists of nothing but ice-cream and Coke (seriously, they show his fridge) and who had previously never been to a market somehow — before and after a paleo road test, which was guided by none other than Pete Evans, a paleo cookbook author and coincidentally Seven’s My Kitchen Rules host, and “independently” assessed by a doctor who also runs a pro-paleo blog. But, as Pickering points out: “Paleo doesn’t say anything about cutting down on conflicts of interest”.