Have you activated your nuts lately? This is the question plaguing millions of Australians today after celebrity chef Pete Evans disclosed to a newspaper what he eats on a typical day.
Here it is:
Well. Where to begin? Social media immediately – and wittily – exploded with a frenzy of speculation about how exactly one Activates an Almond, with the hashtags #ActivatedAlmonds and #ActivateTheAlmonds trending last night.
Here are some of our favourite tweets, including a shock confession from MM editor Mia Freedman:
In the regular Sunday Life magazine feature, nutritionist Joanna McMillan poured water (and a wee bit of scorn) on Pete Evan’s nuts. Here was her response:
For the more curious, Australian natural health magazine Wellbeing, defines an activated nut as “a nut that has been soaked and sprouted to release its enzyme inhibitors”.
So in plain English, these are nuts that are soaked and dried for 12-24 hours in order to get rid of those things that slow down your digestion.
UPDATE: After 24hrs of social media frenzy (#activatedalmonds was trending #1 in Australia until late Monday afternoon when it was replaced by #melbournecup), Pete Evans defended himself. From The Australian:
This morning Evans was provoked into responding on his Facebook page.
“I’m occasionally ridiculed because I choose to eat a nutrient dense diet, and I find it so bizarre as to why people sometimes find my food choice’s so offensive?” he wrote.
“All I know is that I’m well aware of the consequences of eating ‘dead’ food, and also I’m a father, and I take that privilege very seriously, so for me striving for optimum health whenever I can so that I can be a responsible role model for my daughters, and still be able to surf right up until the end, is the obvious choice for me.”
Perhaps when you’re a health conscious chef this is how you actually eat? And perhaps we are all guilty of getting caught up in slightly-ridiculous food fads (see above: Mia’s shocking nut-choice revelation).
Or perhaps Pete could join the Bondi Hipsters? (Click here to watch the hilarious video.)
Are your almonds activated? And what other weird health or food fads have you tried? What’s the most absurd?
Em Rusciano, host of radio show Mamamia Today, shared her own version of “Day on a Plate” with us. Listen below:
Top Comments
It is amazing how many people here make negative comments, without knowing what they are talking about. How many of you actually have a medical or nutritional degree? It's the problem with 'free speech' on the internet: everybody can "contribute" to a discussion without having any background knowledge. So, please dear people, make intelligent, informed comments, or let it be.
You people really have no idea
and very sad to say you will be missing out in what great healthy food can do for you. There is many many many people who have a diet similar to petes and live a very happy healthy life. I went to eat a typical western diet being sheep like everyone else, being brainwashed by media to eat processed foods and when I turned my back on it all and went organic, eating superfoods and drinking good quality water my world turned around. I went through a couple of months detoxifing all the crap I had put into my body but after that I began to feel great. I smile and feel happy all the time, i wake up feeling refreshed and ready to hit the gym and I feel 100% better!
I just find it funny that people will laugh at someone who eats a really clean organic diet but yet those as the people that will go and spend $100 on drinks on a night out or look at your strangely if you pay an extra $10 for activated nuts over raw nuts.. hmm really makes sense.
look into activated nuts and you will realise that activating nuts makes it so much easier on the digestive system as it doesnt have to work as work to break down the fibre cells walls of the nuts and it has so much more nutrition as well as tasting 1000 times better than raw nuts.
You never know what is going to happen in life, you could live for another year, you could live for 50 years or you could like till your over 100, for me I would rather give my body all the nutrients it needs to be healthy so that I can live the fullest live possible and what makes me feel great: Great food! People are not educated into how toxic our enviroment is from pollution to the cleaning products we use we must be constantly giving our bodies the nutrients it needs to detoxify.
it is not pretentious to want to eat healthy and organic, I have met pete when we came into the health food store that I occasionally work at and he is one of the nicest people I have ever met.
But seriously people go to a health food store and start looking at all the great foods that aren't new like activated nuts, go home and do some research and make your own decisions on things.
Treasure yourself, treasure your body and it will give back to you.