Pete Evans

Peter Daryl Evans (born 29 August 1973) is an Australian chef and former television presenter who was a judge of the competitive Australian cooking show My Kitchen Rules. Evans has since been heavily criticised for spreading misinformation about vaccinations, and pseudoscientific dieting ideas such as the Paleolithic diet. He currently lives in Round Mountain, New South Wales.

Early life Born in Melbourne in 1973, Evans was only three when his parents split up, and seven when he and his mother moved to the Gold Coast. He was raised on the Gold Coast and attended Merrimac State High School throughout his teenage years as well as working his first job at McDonald's Mermaid Beach, which was coincidentally the first McDonald's restaurant to open in Queensland.

Evans developed a keen interest in surfing during his high school years on the Gold Coast and would ride his bike to the beach every morning to go surfing. His interest in cooking began in his early teenage years when he worked in a local pie shop on the Gold Coast and began a full-time cooking apprenticeship at the age of 17, which would lead to him relocating to Melbourne at the age of 19 for greater cooking opportunities.

He returned to the Gold Coast-Tweed area later in life and is based in the Northern Rivers where he has recently been involved with a paleo cafe in Burleigh Heads as well as a rainforest retreat in Byrrill Creek.

Career Restaurateur/chef In 1996, Evans moved to Sydney with his brother and David Corsi and they opened Hugos Bondi in 1996, followed by Hugos Lounge in 2000 and Hugos Bar Pizza in 2004 (both in Sydney's Kings Cross) and Hugos Manly in 2008. with co-host Manu Feildel. The fourth series of MKR was shown in 2013. In 2014 the series won the Logie Award for the Most Popular Reality Program. Evans remained a judge on MKR throughout its run, which in 2015 was the highest rated reality television competition in Australia with about two million weekly viewers. Evans also hosted the show A Moveable Feast with Fine Cooking, which aired on PBS in the United States, which was nominated in 2014 for a Daytime Emmy Award. The show first aired in 2013, in which "Evans takes viewers on a faced-paced trip, serving pop-up feasts in a multitude of settings across America". In October 2012, Evans began a monthly recipe column for Home Beautiful. Evans has stated that the philosophy behind his books is that modern society is living by outdated nutritional precepts. Evans is also a motivational speaker, performing national tours in Australia. He first learned of the paleo-diet after reading the works of Nora Gedgaudas. He also won the award in 2015 for "his diet promotions, campaigns against fluoridation and support of anti-vaccinationists". In February 2021, Facebook deleted his Instagram profile page also for COVID-19 misinformation breaches.

Controversies

BioCharger NG During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Evans was criticised by peak Australian medical groups for attempting to promote a product claimed to cure COVID 19. Evans had been promoting a "subtle energy platform" product online called the BioCharger NG for AUD$15,000, which he claimed had a "recipe ... there for Wuhan coronavirus." The Australian Medical Association dismissed it as a "fancy light machine" and Mandy-Lee Noble, a dietician and member of Friends of Science in Medicine, said it "is a glorified plasma lamp," adding "it's probably no threat to people but if people think this in any way will treat or prevent COVID-19 infection, that risks our community response to the pandemic, that is dangerous, it's an indirect harm." Noble called on the TGA and Brad Hazzard (Health Minister in the New South Wales government) to take action.

Black Sun symbolism

In November 2020, Evans came under widespread criticism for sharing a picture online that incorporated the "Black Sun" on his social media platforms – a symbol widely used and embraced by neo-Nazis and white supremacists. This particular design was used by the Christchurch mosque shooter in his propaganda. This action eventually resulted in Evans being dropped by his long-term book publisher Pan Macmillan. Evans previously lived in Sydney in the suburb of North Bondi In 2016, Evans married model Nicola Robinson.