The above video is 2 minutes 36 seconds long.
Watch the full interview below or listen to the full episode on your iPhone HERE.
This week our special guest is paleo chef, bestselling author and TV personality Pete Evans. He has been bringing some much needed awareness here to the Australian public in terms of nutrition, along with his recently released new program ‘The Paleo Way’.
Pete’s career has moved from the kitchen into the lounge room with many TV appearances including Lifestyle Channel’s Home show, Postcards from Home, FISH, My Kitchen Rules, Moveable Feast, and his latest The Paleo Way… stay tuned for Food is Medicine which is in pre production now!
It’s safe to say he knows his stuff, with over 10 bestselling cookbooks inspiring individuals and families in their kitchens around the world.
The Full Interview with Chef Pete Evans
In this episode we talk about:
Why Pete embraced the paleo diet and lifestyle
How he felt by being voted the second worst diet, only to be pipped at the post by the ‘drink your own urine’ diet
How eats and travels on the road when traveling
His thoughts on the 80/20 rule of good/bad food and when to apply it
Why he felt like crap when first starting the paleo diet
And much much more…
CLICK HERE for all Episodes of 180TV
Get More of Chef Pete Evans & The Paleo Way Here:
http://peteevans.com.au/
Facebook
Full Pete Evans Transcript
Guy Lawrence: Hey, this is Guy Lawrence from 180 Nutrition, and welcome to another episode of the Health Sessions. Our fantastic guest today is Pete Evans. Now, if you haven’t heard of Pete, I’d be very surprised. Well, at least here in Australia anyway.
But Pete Evans is an Australian chef. He’s a best-selling author. And also a bit of TV celebrity, especially well-known for My Kitchen Rules.
It was awesome to have Pete on the podcast today. He’s very clear. He’s a very sincere and passionate person. As you could say, he’s a little bit of a nutritional crusader at the moment, and certainly making people think twice about what they put on their plate and how it’s affecting their overall health in the long-term, which I think is fantastic, you know. And that’s the very reasons why we’ve put these podcasts out there in the first place.
I have no doubt you’re gonna get a lot out of this episode. Pete’s a top guy with a top message, and it’s 40 minutes of great content, so please enjoy.
As always, we’re on iTunes. If you could just take two minutes and leave us a review, we really appreciate it. You know, we want to get this message out there ourselves, and by leaving us reviews, it certainly helps with iTunes rankings and more and more people find us and enjoy it.
I always wish I had these podcasts for myself five years ago when I first started my health journey. You know, it’s a great excuse to hang out with some of the best, we feel, thought leaders in the world, as they share their story with us. So, yeah. That’s why we do it. We love it. And I have no doubt you’re gonna enjoy this episode today.
And, of course, come back to 180Nutrition.com.au. We have a massive amount of resources in there, including a free ebook, recipes, and, of course, videos if you want to see us actually in person chatting.
Anyway, enjoy the show. This is fantastic.
Stuart Cooke: Let’s do it.
Guy Lawrence: OK, hi. This is Guy Lawrence. I’m joined with Stuart Cooke as always. Hey, Stu. And our fantastic guest today is Pete Evans. Pete, welcome to the show, mate.
Pete Evans: Hi, fellows. Thanks for having me on. What an honor.
Guy Lawrence: No worries, dude. Every time I log into my Facebook I seem to see you in a different country, state, city. Do you ever have any quiet time? Like, you’re very busy at the moment.
Pete Evans: I am busy, but I guess it’s all part of the journey at the moment. I love it. I have the best job in the world, because I was actually speaking to Luke Hines, which is one of my business partners on the Paleo Way, and doing the tour and we also do the 10-week program. And we had dinner last night and I said, it’s not a job when you love what you do.
But to answer your question, I have amazing down time with my family. But even that is quite active. I mean, we love to go surfing, we like to go skiing, we like to go fishing, we like to cook together. We are active people, but we know how to switch off as well.
Guy Lawrence: Fantastic. Mate, the way we always kick off the show is generally just to get a little bit of insight about, you know, our guests that come on. And we’d love to hear a little bit of your journey from being a restaurateur to being a TV host and then actually now you could say a paleo crusader, which is fantastic in creating all this awareness.
How did it all start for Pete?
Pete Evans: Well. Mum and Dad thought that they’d have another child. I think I was a mistake, but I’m glad they had it. Really, I’ve always had a passion for cooking and I’ve always had a passion for health and nutrition. That’s something that I’ve had from quite an early age as a teenager, in school. And I always knew that I; my passion for health and nutrition nearly outweighed my passion for cooking. But one thing led to another and the cooking side took over for quite a period of time for a couple of decades.
And it wasn’t until about four years ago that I thought, you know what, there’s something pulling me back into the health and nutrition side of things. So I started researching it and I discovered paleo, and I thought, you know what? This makes a lot of sense. So I implemented it on my own self and my family through my partner Nicola.
And we just saw amazing results and I dug a little bit deeper and we both did a health course out of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York, New York. And we studied a hundred different dietary theories. And paleo still made the most sense to me. And I thought, well, this is; it’s working for us. It makes so much sense on a planetary scale as well for what we can do for the land as far as that sustainable way of eating goes. Now, let’s try to find some holes in it. And I dug as deep as I could, because I thought, if I’m gonna come out publicly with this, then how am I gonna get shot down? Because I know that I’m a little bit of a target.
And you know what? It was; I still have yet to find anybody that has adopted this way of life for 10, 15, however many years and had a negative result from it. And I’m talking about people who adopted it; they’re doing it 90 to 100 percent of their lives. They’ve actually made a conscious decision that they won’t be consuming certain food items, and embracing others.
And, for me, it’s evidence enough that this works, especially in today’s day and age where people can be very vocal about what works and what doesn’t. And you see it on my Facebook. I mean, I really have had no one in hundreds of thousands of comments say that it hasn’t worked for them. Except for outside organizations saying that it’s dangerous. And I’m, like, well, I hear you and understand that you might believe it is, from your own education, but show me some evidence that it’s hurting people. And no one can offer me that evidence.
So, it’s a fantastic way of life, I believe, that is helping a lot of people. Is it a cure for everything? No. I’ve never said that. But it is benefiting a lot of people? Yes it is. And that is undeniable.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah, I certainly agree, Pete. I had a massive paradigm shift about eight to nine years ago and I used to work with people with chronic diseases and mainly people with cancer. And what I didn’t realize was, it was mainly the paleo diet that they were using as part of a tool to sort of help nurture these people through a recovery process. And I was seeing things that challenged every belief first-hand, you know?
Pete Evans: And I think what you’ve just said there, it’s a tool. It’s not the be all and end all. You can eat all the paleo food in the world, but if you’ve got a terrible relationship, if you don’t move your body or you move your body too much or you’re not getting enough sleep or you’ve got a job that you dislike, I mean, you will still suffer, or you can still suffer, disease.
But paleo is one good tool. And it’s an amazing tool to have at your disposal to, I guess, get your diet under control. And then hopefully then it opens you up and gives you enough energy to start to look at the other things that may need tightening up as well.
So, I see paleo as a bit of a gateway. I see it as something very tangible for people to make simple changes in their life. Sometimes people might be at a job that they’re stuck in for a year because they’re in a contract. They might be in a relationship because of children that they may not be able to remove themselves from or change. Financial situations. Emotional situations. All of this. Whereas what we can definitely change on a daily basis is what we put into our mouth. And that’s why I say this always: It’s a gateway into better health.
Guy Lawrence: Great starting point. The food you can control, ultimately.
Stuart Cooke: It certainly makes sense.
Pete Evans: Well, it’s the only thing you can… It’s the one thing you can control, unless you’re a child, or unless you are in the care of others. And that’s why I’m very passionate about children’s education and teaching parents about this, because really the children have no choice and if they are fed a poor diet for a period of time while they’re younger, it may make it harder for them to make changes down the track if they’ve got certain addictions or certain emotional reward systems set up for certain foods.
And I could talk about this for hours, but I know you’ve got to have questions, so…
Stuart Cooke: Yeah. Well, we definitely go into the kids a little later as well. But I was particularly interested, first up, in discussing the Paleo Way. So, I’ve seen they’ve got Channel 7 airing the program and also you’ve got some amazing online educational course as well.
Guy Lawrence: And you’re on tour as well, aren’t you, Pete?
Stuart Cooke: You’re on tour! Crikey.
Pete Evans: Well, yeah. Um. I made a conscious decision a couple of years ago when I came out, with paleo, if you want to call it, that my vision or my goal was to turn paleo into a household name in Australia and New Zealand. That was something that I believed I could do using (audio glitch), but it is what it is, just through my media profile.
I should have put out that my intent was to push paleo into mainstream and to make it into a household name in a positive light. Lesson learned. Because it’s definitely become something that people talk about that’s become part of our popular culture, I daresay, through the work that I’ve done, and many of my peers.
Now, the tour is something where; we did the tour last year and I brought Nora Gedgaudas out, who is one of my mentors, and she’s a powerhouse of information. And she’s got a heart of gold and a brain that matches.
And what I wanted to do was do a tour where we present the science. And it was very difficult for us to do that in a four-hour forum. I said to Nora, I said, “Can you condense it into three and a half hours?” And she’s like, I’ll do my best.
And for a lot of people it was overwhelming because I think they were coming to learn how to cook, but we gave; and Nora’s goal is to give people a paradigm shift with enough information that they go, “OK. I get it.” That was my vision was, let’s present the facts in the first tour last year. Let’s get the science out there. Let’s show people that this isn’t quackery. This is actually well-researched and here’s the science and the peer reviews and all the stuff to back it up.
And this year I thought, let’s give them the fundamental tools to adopt a paleo lifestyle for themselves and their families. And I’ve structured it in a way that we talk about budget home cooking; things we can do and have on the table in 10 to 15 minutes. Maybe 20 minutes tops.
The healing properties of bone broths and fermented vegetables. Let’s talk about getting offal into people’s diet where, especially in this culture and this country, where it seems so foreign to us whereas if we went back three generations, it would be something that was standard as part of our weekly diet.
So, it’s about incorporating these simple and, I guess, ancient, cooking techniques and ideas and philosophies and bringing it into 2015 in a way that’s accessible and affordable and a lot of fun.
Luke Hines, who I mentioned before, is on tour with me so he talks about his own journey with depression and anxiety and how changing his diet and changing the way he moved helped him a great deal. And I’ve got special guests that appear with me all around the country. So, for instance, today I’m speaking in Perth. I’ve got Dr. Libby who is a fantastic woman who’s done 48 years of university study, I’ve got Charlotte Carr who’s a mother who’s helped her child through autism with diet. We’ve got Helen Padarin who is a naturopath who works for the Mindd Foundation whose sole purpose is to help children and families that suffer behavioural disorders.
And I’m also up on stage with, I don’t even know anymore; there’s that many people… Um… And it’s been brilliant. We’re seeing about 10,000 people around Australia and New Zealand over a two-month period. And they all, at the end of it, get the 10-week program that we designed.
And the 10-week program, I tried to do it as cheap as possible so it was accessible for pretty much anyone in the country. It’s $10 a week. Ten a week or 99 bucks, as a one-off payment.
I’d give it away for free if I could, but I’ve spoke to people that said, if you give it, people won’t even do it, because they won’t value it.
Stuart Cooke: Correct.
Guy Lawrence: Absolutely.
Pete Evans: So, and I think this is key: I think people need to put a value on their health and be invested in their health. So, I’ve tried to keep it as cheap as possible. And it’s a brilliant program. So, as part of it, we’ve got meal plans, shopping lists, fitness programs with Luke, we’ve got Nora’s information each week, I’ve got a very dear friend of mine, Trevor Hendy, who is seven-time world champion athlete in Ironman who has spent the last 25 years working on mind-body-spirit. So, he’s in there teaching people about how to make powerful decisions and why we sabotage ourselves sometimes.
And I’ve also got interviews with leading experts from around the world. So, each week they’re getting another bite of the bigger picture of what paleo is. For me, when I talk about paleo, I always think first and foremost that it’s for individual health. So, anyone that wants to learn more because they are suffering ill health or they want to feel better, it’s a great place. But then I talk about the power that they have to influence their family, their friends, their community. And then it goes into the thing that I’m most passionate about, apart from children’s health, is about how we grow our food. How we move that food around the country. Can we start doing local abattoirs instead of sending the cattle to mass slaughterhouses by road train. And all these type of things. And can we use the beautiful land that we have in this country for better use instead of some of the products that we’re growing that serve us; well, actually harming us.
I mean that, I just drove up from my property in the Tweed up to; out to Townsville, I mean up to Wombury? Worongary? [:15:10.6] and just saw how much sugar cane is growing. So I looked up, I Googled it, I said, “How much sugar cane is growing in Queensland.” There’s 6,500 families, all with 65 hectares, that grow sugar cane and I thought, “Wow. That’s a lot of land that is …
Stuart Cook: That is a lot of land.
Pete Evans: That is used for a product that we know is a known poison for our bodies. That is causing us major health issues. And I just kept thinking imagine if they planted broccoli on that, imagine if they planted kale on that, imagine if they used that for pasteurized chickens that were producing eggs and also imagine if they brought cattle into that, that were grass-fed. I mean, I’m not an agriculturist. That’s not my specialty. But I look at these things from a common sense point of view and think how much usable land are we using in this country to grow things that serve us; that don’t serve us.
Guy Lawrence: Absolutely.
Stuart Cook: Yeah.
Guy Lawrence: But sugar is such a big industry, isn’t it. Where we had Damon Gameau come on the podcast a couple of weeks back and you know, you see the effect first-hand of what he was explaining what happened to him on his three-month experiment with the sugar and I see around with people all the time. It’s incredible.
Pete Evans: Yeah, he’s a beautiful man and he’s going to change so many lives and we’re thrilled to have him as part of one of our health crusaders in the country. I mean, his story is wonderful and he sacrificed his own health for it.
I thought about doing that a few years ago and I thought, “I don’t want to sacrifice my health.” I’m going to try to do it in a way that I don’t get sick.
Stuart Cook: Yeah.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah. Go for it Stu.
Stuart Cook: I was just interested in, on your journey, what have been the biggest dietary misconceptions that you’ve uncovered? Any that have really kind of just switched that light bulb on for you, that you want to tell everybody.
Pete Evans: Well, for me it’s, I haven’t discovered anything and I’d like to make that perfectly clear that this is not my idea.
Stuart Cook: Yeah.
Pete Evans: The, you know, the work of so many well respected scientists and researchers and professors and doctors and health crusaders themselves, I mean, I’m standing on their shoulders and I’m trying to elevate all of their work into a greater audience. So, I don’t; I haven’t discovered anything.
I’ve discovered my own health benefits from it and how much clearer I am. How much happier I am. How much more energized I am. I can see the different results in my own children. I can see the results in my mother. I can see it in my partner. My dad is coming to the seminar this year. He refused to come last year, because he thought he would be bored shitless. But now he’s interested. My brother’s coming along this year. I mean, it’s a powerful thing.
But I think one of the things that I’m passionate about at the moment is the next generation and the coming generations. And I have recently put a book together with Charlotte Carr, who as I mentioned before, has helped her child and her family along with adopting paleo and Helen Padarin, who I also mentioned before, a naturopath, who works with the Mindd Foundation.
So, I asked these ladies if we could put a book together called The Paleo Way for New Mums, Babies and Toddlers, because I’ve never seen anything on the market like this and it just makes so much sense for me that we need this information out there and Sally Fallon. I’m a huge fan of her work with Nourishing Traditions and I met her last year and I look at the work she’s done in this field and I was really quite impressed with what she’s been able to achieve. So, I thought, how can we repackage that in a way that’s timeless for 2015 and onwards?
So, we’ve created this book and it’s fascinating. We just had a email come yesterday from the Dietitians Association of Australia basically giving us a warning and saying; We heard you’ve got this book coming out and the World Health Organization has issued a statement that said, that if babies cannot accept breast milk, then the only thing they advise them to have is formula.
Now, this is the statement that came from us, from the Dietitians Associations of Australia, they’re saying that we need to be very careful with any information that we put out there, because we’ve got a baby broth formula for parents that do not want to give their children vegetable oils, which are contained in baby food formulas. The parents that don’t want to feed their children high fructose corn syrup, which is; these two ingredients are the first two that are listed on most baby food formulas and then there’s soy protein and then there’s a whole lot of other emulsifiers and God knows what, that are in there.
So, through the experience of Helen and the Weston A. Price Foundation, which is Sally Fallon, we’ve discovered, and this is what Charlotte used for her child, they’ve created this broth that basically mimics as close as possible to breast milk. Now, we always advocate that breast milk is best, but we’re also discovering that more and more children are intolerant to it. We’re discovering that more and more children are intolerant to dairy. So, and we’re discovering that people do not want to feed their children frankenfoods.
So, we’ve got; the girls have created this alternative, which has got chicken broth in it or bone broth and it’s also got livers in there and it’s also got coconut oil, so we’re getting the MCTs into there. We’ve got probiotic in there as well. So, it’s closely mimicking it and we never say that it’s better than breast milk, of course we’re never going to say that. You would be an idiot to even think that. But surely somebody with common sense would understand that formula that’s got …
Guy Lawrence: Corn syrup and vegetable …
Pete Evans: … known toxic and harmful properties. This could be a healthier option or at least an alternative for people that have half a brain that have done some research and decided that, “You know what? Maybe there’s an alternative out there.” So, this is going to be interesting to see how this pans out in the media. We’ve already got quite a bit of flak and the book isn’t even out there.
Guy Lawrence: When does the book come out, Pete?
Pete Evans: It comes out in a couple of weeks, …
Guy Lawrence: Okay.
Pete Evans: …yeah, mid-March. But we’ve got beautiful dietitians, accredited practicing dietitians, that are working on it, looking these formulas and breaking them down inyo s nutritional viewpoint for us. So, we’ve got charts comparing formula sold in supermarkets compared to this one. And you know what, it has it stacking up a lot better than formula without all the crap in it.
So, it’s going to be very interesting.
Guy Lawrence: That will be interesting. Absolutely. Yeah.
Stuart Cook: Well, I guess it’s great to be able to actually get something in there in the very conception of your child’s life, when they are succumbed to so many potential toxins and, like you said, treats and sweets. We’re trying to wean them on to sugary foods and sweet fruits and things like that. Yeah. It’s very interesting.
We, I mean, you mentioned the critics there as well and one of our questions was, what do you say to the critics out there? Because we roared with laugher as the paleo diet was XXpipped to the Post 23:33.7XX by the drink-you-own-urine diet.
Guy Lawrence: Yes.
Stuart Cook: It’s absurd. How do you handle that?
Pete Evans: Personally, I don’t let it get to me.
Stuart Cook: Yeah.
Pete Evans: Because I understand where they’re coming from. I do and they’re coming from a place of fear.
Stuart Cook: Right.
Pete Evans: And you can only put yourself in their shoes and understand that they’re just protecting themselves and their organization and their beliefs. Because it is their belief system, that they’ve been to university, they’ve been force-fed a whole lot of information which current science and research are saying that potentially is not the right information.
Now, you could imagine if you went to university for four years or six years or even eight years and you were part of this, I guess, machine and all of a sudden you’re looking at; I’ll use myself as an example, because that seems to be where a lot of the critiques are coming.
You see a person that’s a chef promoting a way of life that flies in the face of everything that you’ve learned.
Stuart Cook: Right.
Pete Evans: Of course you’re going to get upset. Of course you’re going to defend what you’ve been taught. Of course you’re going to think that this is quackery. Of course you’re going to be up in arms and feel like this person, this chef out there, could be potentially causing harm to the greater population. So, I understand them and I feel their frustration and I feel for them and this is why I’ve never, now I’ve made the decision I’m not going to fight anything.
Stuart Cook: No.
Pete Evans: I’m not going to. I mean, I had a couple of issues over the last few years when I’ve stood my ground because someone has actually, I think, the one time I actually fought back or said something was when someone called me a fuckwit on my own page. And that was what they said: “You are a fuckwit!” And I looked at who it was and I noticed it was a dietitian and I went … how … you know, if that’s the best; if that’s what you think, you know, well let’s put it back and I write a little piece and I said, “Why is your organization not looking at GMOs? Why are they not promoting organics? Why are they not trying to get; look at what we’re feeding our agriculture? Are we feeding them genetically modified soil? Why are we not; why when you talk about overconsumption of meat you never difference between grass-fed and grain-fed? Why is it that children are getting sicker and sicker as in each generation comes? Why you associated and have money coming in from multi-national food corporations? Is there not a conflict of interest?”
So, I just put the question out there, you know, because I took offence of that. Just, you know, I think …
Guy Lawrence: Yes, of course.
Pete Evans: … name called and I just said, “Why?” Because I see the DAA as a major powerful force of change for this country and there’s 6,000 members for them. I mean, imagine if they united together to ask these questions, to put pressure on to their governments, to put pressure on to the supermarkets, to put pressure on the school, schooling systems, the canteen system. Could you imagine this organization that has this much power and is viewed as something that a well-respected organization, imagine if they put their weight behind something.
Now, I’ve never seen them do this. Now, I could be wrong, but I’m trying to encourage them, that they have this power. And unfortunately I fear that if they don’t change and start to address some of these things, then they will become irrelevant because; and it’s not a goal of mine. I would love nothing more than the DAA or even the Heart Foundation to work together with other health professionals and actually come around the table and say, “You know what? Well, let’s work together for a better Australia.” But unfortunately their mantra is “everything in moderation.”
Guy Lawrence: Yeah.
Pete Evans: And I just don’t think that is the right philosophy. I mean, you have to look at the guidelines that are out there for a healthy Australia and the question that I always have is, “Is that the healthiest guidelines that we could possibly put into schools?” Is that the healthiest guidelines that we should be educating for every person in this country?
Because we know that it’s not. So, what not put the optimum out there so that people know this is the optimum and then people can make their own choice from there.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah. Did you think the change will come from that level? Or do you think it’s going to just come from the grass roots level and word of mouth and people leading by example? I mean, because that’s where it’s at, at the moment.
Pete Evans: Ideally, I would love for it to come from a unified force. I really do and I mean, that’s the dream it for it to change from a government level, from a national health society level, a unified level, you know what “this is the new research, you know, let’s adapt” and there should never be blame or I told you so’s or this, that and the other. It should be, “You know what? This is the current research. This is what’s happening in other parts of the world; where in other parts of the world have taken fluoride out of the water in lots of countries and reversed it. Should we revisit that in this country? Should we look at the saturated fat? Does that lead to chronic heart disease, because other parts of the world are reversing their guidelines for that? Should we be changing that?
Will it happen with multi-national food corporations, with their tentacles involved in these organizations? I doubt that it will happen. If they can remove that funding, then I believe it can happen. But, and this is the interesting thing, because I dare say there’s a huge grass-roots movement happening.
Now what will happen soon, I believe, is that the multi national food corporations will start to put out products that are inline with Paleo or ketogenic or low-carb, high fat or …
Stuart Cook: Yeah.
Pete Evans: …or primal or banting; whatever you want to call it. They’re going to start saying that the dollars are in this new area. So, I wouldn’t doubt that Kellogg’s will start putting a paleo muesli out there next year. I wouldn’t doubt that we’re starting to see lard or tallow start to appear on supermarket shelves in the next five years. And then I think you will see that when they’ve got money to be made out of this, that you will see it start to change through these associations. But I dare say that the grass-roots movement will be the catalyst for this.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah. Yeah. I just hope if we do start seeing the bigger commercial companies putting out these products out they are authentic and not just jumping on the gluten-free, the low-calorie, low-fat and everything that we’re seeing at the moment.
Pete Evans: Well, you know what? To answer that, I think people are becoming more and more savvy and more and more educated, so I don’t think; put it this way, if they put out a paleo muesli and it’s full of sugar and crap or sweetness and it’s, you know it’s still going to jack you up and it’s not organic, then that might have appeal to the people that aren’t really up-to-date with the research. You know what I mean?
Guy Lawrence: Yep. Yep.
Pete Evans: Whereas the people that are hard core or are early adopters of this will see through that and go, “You know what? It’s still not good enough.” So, at the end of the day it’s probably, even if we can get the mass public to start eating that way even if it’s not the ultimate, at least it’s probably better than what they’ve had.
Guy Lawrence: True. Yep.
Pete Evans: And I don’t think, you know, we’re not set up for 100 percent of Australia to turn paleo tomorrow. It would be a disaster, you know, because we don’t have the resources for it. But I see this as a growing movement and I say this as it’s happening exactly as it’s meant to be happening with the people adopting it as they are adopting it. Because we couldn’t sustain it if everyone did it tomorrow, but we can adapt to it as more people come to it.
Stuart Cook: What have you found to be the biggest hurdles for the newbies to paleo?
Pete Evans: The biggest hurdles I find is, they’re not doing it 100 percent.
Stuart Cook: Right.
Pete Evans: I noticed that with my, with the 10-week program.
Stuart Cook: Yep.
Pete Evans: And I think there’s an expectation that 40 years of eating a poor diet is going to be fixed within two weeks.
Stuart Cook: Right.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah.
Pete Evans: And I think that is; I think we live in a society where we think that we can take a pill or we can change a habit and we will see, decades of poorer choices fixed in a minute and it isn’t like that and how I like to describe it when I talk about this is: I’ve been doing this for four years and I feel better now than I did a year ago and last year I felt better than I did the previous year.
Stuart Cook: Right.
Pete Evans: But after six weeks of eating Paleo, I felt like I was superman, you know. But for the first three or four weeks I felt like, I felt crap, because I was going through a detox and my body was switching over its fuel source and I hadn’t had a great diet for a decade or two prior to that. But I definitely had a diet better than a lot of people that come to this.
You know, I wasn’t 40 kilos overweight. I wasn’t Type 2 diabetic. I wasn’t; I didn’t have insulin resistance. I didn’t have autoimmune disease.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah.
Pete Evans: I know we have a lot of these people that adopt this and expect results overnight and I think that’s a misconception. I think that’s why I say it’s a lifestyle. I’ll never say it a diet, because once; and you can’t do it 80/20 if you’ve got an autoimmune disease. You can’t do it 80/20 and expect great results if you’re Type 2 diabetic. It’s like saying to an alcoholic, “You can have a drink every Friday night.”
Stuart Cook: Yeah.
Pete Evans: Yeah, the 80/20 rule.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah.
Stuart Cook: Yeah.
Pete Evans: You just can’t do it if you’ve got anxiety or depression, 80/20’s not going to cut it for you if you want true freedom. I’m not saying you’ve got to do it 100 percent for the rest of your life, but you have to give yourself a period of time where, you know, if you’re strict with this, because you do want to reap the benefits and we know now that gluten can stay in your system for up to six months. So, if you’ve got an issue with that, whether it’s mental or physical, and you ate your piece of cake, you know after you’ve done this for a month that could have affected you for the next month or two.
Guy Lawrence: That incredible, isn’t it, you know. I know it’s very hard to relate though, because people if they’ve got health issues. They’ve never; they’ve never really put the connection together, you know, how the effective of the food can be and I think that it can be such a massive change for them at first and you’ve got to embrace it whole heartily and actually be around peer groups though that encourage you to continue that way. Because I used to see a lot of family and friends be sincere, but they’d be sincerely wrong, because if their health wasn’t great they would want to feed them with foods, with cake and things that would …
Pete Evans: Yeah.
Guy Lawrence: That would always set them back and you know, there are so many aspects to it as well, which it; it can be tough. It can be tough. But worth it, you know.
Yeah. Go ahead, you look like you’re going to say something Stu.
Stuart Cook: Well, I was just thinking about the beautiful foods that the paleo diet offers. Now, I get jabbed a little bit because I’m a huge fan of liver and I have it regularly for breakfast and love it. I wondered what your “go to” paleo super foods were; perhaps the paleo foods, the whole foods that you gravitated to more, more so than any others. Any special favorites of yours?
Pete Evans: Yeah. I guess it’s changed over the four years and I probably eat simpler now than I ever have. I think when I first started out, I think when I talked about activated XXunintelligibleXX [:36:52.3] I was on XXunintelligibleXX [:36:56.1] so I was eating almonds and everything. I was eating coconut chunks. I was having spirulina and grains and all these sorts of stuff. I, my diet now is a lot simpler. One: I don’t really need to snack and number two is I’m cooking a lot less and a lot simpler food. I guess offal and bone marrow has taken a larger place in my diet these days and my body loves it. The bone broths, I’m constantly cooking with them and using them in so many different preparations from soups, to curries, to braises, to bolognaise sauces for the kids. I’m sliding it in everywhere. Vegetables, I’m eating a hell of a lot of them these days. I’m eating less steak than I ever have. I’m eating different parts of animals and the seafood is a little bit more varied now these days, as well.
Superfoods, I would say offal is one of the superfoods and I don’t like to use that word too much, but put it this way, in my pantry I don’t have any superfoods as such that you would see at a health food store.
Stuart Cook: Right.
Pete Evans: My superfoods would be in my freezer. Which would be my marrows, my brains.
Stuart Cook: Yeah.
Pete Evans: The livers, the stocks or the broths, some organic berries in there and that’s about it and I guess the ultimate superfood for us is the fermented vegetables that I love creating and different flavors each week and my kids love it these days and it’s on every meal of theirs. I’m excited about that, because it’s such a cheap option for people. And it’s exciting because you start to become, you start to crave it; those sour flavor and the acidic flavors from fermented foods and if I don’t have it on my plate, then my plate feels empty …
Guy Lawrence: Yeah.
Pete Evans: … these days. It feels like it’s a bit undressed so to speak.
Guy Lawrence: We always have a few questions we asked everyone towards the end of the show.
Pete Evans: Yep.
Guy Lawrence: But I’ll ask you one which will lead into one we always ask, so I’m interested, you know, how you structure your food around traveling?
Pete Evans: Sure.
Guy Lawrence: And then can you tell us what you ate yesterday?
Pete Evans: Yeah. Sure. I actually flew Sydney to Perth yesterday and it’s a great, great, great question because the poor flight attendant was so worried that I didn’t eat on the plane. Even though he didn’t see that while we were taking off I had a huge, beautiful salad. It was full to the brim of, I had a whole avocado, I had zucchini, cucumbers, carrots in there, red cabbage. Just a fantastic, huge amount of salad with a quarter of a roast chicken in there and heaps of fermented vegetables and I guess to give you an idea, it was twice as much as what anyone else on the plane ate. But that was my one meal, which got me through to dinner last night.
And last night I went and saw a friend of mine, he’s an oyster shucker, and I had a couple dozen oysters at his restaurant and they’re expensive, but it’s an indulgence, but he shucks them to order for me. His name’s Jerry Fraser out in Perth. He’s like a father figure to me and we always have a good time.
And then I went back to the hotel and I had some short ribs with some fermented vegetables and what else was on the table? Some asparagus with olives and activated almonds. I consult for a hotel in Perth called Fraser Suites and the restaurant called Heirloom. So, and because I spend a lot of time in Perth and I went to this hotel and I said, “Can I do your menu for you?” And it’s 95 percent paleo. So, and the restaurant was full. I never advertise it. It’s just for the hotel guests really, but people can pop in and eat it. We don’t even promote that it is paleo. It’s just good honest food and there is bone marrow on the menu. There’s grass-fed meat. Here’s organic chicken. There’s wild caught seafood with fermented vegetables you can order as a side.
So, that was my day on a plate and I had a beautiful bottle of kefir that I got from Orchid Street. It was a turmeric and alkalized water kefir, with some cayenne pepper in it. It was awesome.
Now, when I travel interstate I usually don’t eat or I’ll take something, maybe some macadamia nuts. But when I travel internationally to and from my locations, I always; exactly like what I did yesterday. You can travel internationally with your own food. So, recently I went to the United States and I took half a roasted chicken. I took two avocados, two cucumbers, two carrots, a little bag of macadamia nuts and some fermented veg, some sauerkraut, but you have to tip out the liquid from the sauerkraut before you hop on the plane, because they don’t let liquids through over 50 mils.
So I sit here on the plane and as soon as we take off in the air, I sit down, I have a big meal and then I watch a movie or two and then I sleep and then; I have to forgo the Tupperware container or whatever I’ve had or I give it a rinse in the bathroom and repack it in my bag and hopefully they don’t quarantine it and they haven’t yet. And that’s the same thing when I come back from America or the U.S. or the UK. I go to Whole Foods and I stock up on some good quality paté or some food and I pack my own food.
Guy Lawrence: Great. Yeah.
Pete Evans: You know that you’re eating organic or grass-fed or organic veg, and you know, it’s so simple these days when I do it.
A friend of mine that runs the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, Joshua Rosenthal, who’s a brilliant man with a massive vision of change for the world and the first thing that we learn in the modules is: don’t be afraid to fit out. He said it’s the most empowering thing that you can do for yourself, because most of society want to fit in like sheep, basically.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah.
Stuart Cook: Yeah.
Pete Evans: They don’t want to be seen as being different from anybody else and you know, I’m very proud to fit out on a plane and eat food that is going to benefit me and hopefully not make me feel like crap when I hop off the plane.
Guy Lawrence: That’s a great saying, “fit out.” Yeah, I love that.
Pete Evans: Fit out.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah. Fantastic. That almost answers our last question to a degree; which is, we always ask this on our guests. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Pete Evans: My best piece of advice was actually something my grade 10 math teacher said to me. He said, “Pete, you’ll be successful at anything you choose to do in your life.”
And even to this day it’s still the most powerful statement that anyone has ever said to me and I pray every day that he said that to each and every student that he taught. Because he made me feel special and unique and I just wonder how many parents say that to their children. I wonder how many teachers of children say that to people. I wonder how many nurses might say it to their patients or doctors might say it. You know, just that one bit of encouragement and belief that this person had in me changed my whole life and changed my whole outlook and so, my bit of piece of advice that I can give everybody is to plant the seeds of belief in another human being I think is the most powerful thing you can do.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah, belief’s a huge thing.
Stuart Cook: Wise words. Yeah. Absolutely.
Guy Lawrence: Stu?
Stuart Cook: Brilliant. Yeah, I just wondered what the, you know, what does the future hold for Pete Evans? What have you got coming up; we’ve spoken about your books, right now?
Pete Evans: Well, if I don’t end up dead from a conspiracy theorist, I’ve always; I said to my mum last year, “If I go missing for some reason or I have a very strange accident, you know it probably wasn’t an accident.” Because we are definitely ruffling some major feathers here and there’s billions and trillions of dollars at stake if people adopt this way of life that will be lost through certain aid; agribusiness or multi-national food corporations and pharmaceutical companies. I mean think about the impact that this could have. It’s actually quite terrifying if you think about it a little bit. So, if I can keep running and keep doing this, then just more of the same, I mean more of the same.
I mean recently I released a cookbook three months ago called Family Food and to give you the impact that has had in Australia, it’s become the number 1 selling lifestyle book. It’s superseded any other book over the last couple of years with the volume that it sold in the last three months.
Now, I think there’s 150,000 copies out in Australia. Now, if I think about that as a family food book, so you’d have to think that at least there’s a mum and a dad and 1 child, so three people with this book, so that’s half a million people; let’s round it out, which is maybe 1 to 2 percent of the populations have now got access to a book and they’re aware of it that it’s a grain-free, dairy-free, sugar-free book.
So, I plan on just releasing more of this information in a way and my job is to, is not to present so much of the science behind it, but to give people the practical tools that they can put into their life. As a chef I think that’s my purposes. Let’s take the information and put it into beautiful recipes that people want to cook at home. Because really you can know all of this, but if you don’t cook it and put it into practice, then what point is it. Actions speak louder than words.
So, more books, improving my program, Next year we’re going to do a tour, we’re talking about belief systems, so there’ll be no cooking involved and I’ve got a lineup of speakers from around the world that I want to bring to talk about breaking addictions, self love, self worth, fear, get rid of fears and understand how to make these positive decisions in life and how to goal set.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah.
Pete Evans: This sort of stuff excites me. Hopefully spending a lot more time with my children and my partner. We just bought a farm, so that’s part of my next journey; how to become pretty much self-sufficient so I know exactly where my food is coming from. And hopefully through that we’ll get a TV series that I can create about this. About how to grow your own food and how to live sustainably.
I want to live off the land. I want to remove myself as much as I can from the current food system, if I can. Just so I can trust where the food is coming from.
And I’m also filming a documentary at the moment called, “Food is Medicine” that I’ve been putting together for the last year and a half and I’ve got another year and a half of filming for that. I very much like Damon Gameau’s sugar film.
Guy Lawrence: Yeah.
Pete Evans: I want to show the positive stories of using food as medicine and I think it will be a powerful catalyst for change. I’ve got a beautiful storyteller, documentary filmmaker that is doing this for us and it will be challenging for a lot of people to see the information that we present, but it will also be awe inspiring as well. So, I’m looking forward to seeing the end result of that, but yet I’m in no rush to put that out. Everything’s happening as it’s meant to be happening.
Guy Lawrence: That’s fantastic Pete. Good on you, mate.
For everyone listening to this, where’s the best place to get more of Pete Evens?
Pete Evans: My Facebook is probably the best. I’m active on that daily. It’s Chef Pete Evens or Pete Evens Chef, I don’t even know. And if anyone wants to do the 10-week program and I’m not here to sell anything, but it’s ThePaleoWay.com. But it does have the resources in there and the tools for people to implement change in their lives.
And I just want to give you guys a round of applause for what you’re doing, because it is a joint effort here, there’s many of us spreading the medicine as I like to call it and we’re reaching a different variety of people, each in their own unique way and unified way we’re so much stronger.
Guy Lawrence: Absolutely and we appreciate it Pete. You know, it’s affected my life dramatically over the years. I’ve seen it first-hand affecting others and we just feel we need to be pushing out and we have been for the last four years.
Stuart Cook: Just spread the word. Yeah, that’s it.
Guy Lawrence: And we really appreciate your coming on the show mate. That was fantastic. Thank you so much.
Pete Evans: We did it finally.
Stuart Cook: We got it through.
Pete Evans: Thanks guys.
Guy Lawrence: Good on you, Pete. Thanks mate.
Pete Evans: See ya.
Stuart Cook: Bye.
View all our podcast guests here