Social media backlash: Hillary and Jeremy send vegans off their nuts.

Whole Food Living editor Peter Barclay has hit out hard at last Friday's Seven Sharp programme which purported to promote the need for iron in our diets but was really just beet up for NZ Beef and Lamb.

In an opinion piece published on the magazine's website earlier this afternoon, Barclay said vegans had every right to be upset by the programme's content.

"It was far from balanced and endeavoured to make a joke of vegan eating by suggesting that an extraordinary 4kg of spinach would need to be consumed to match a good slab of steak," he says.

"The item was extraordinarily misleading because of its advocacy for haem iron (from beef) drew an entirely unrealistic comparison with the consumption of plant-based iron.

"The part that angers me most is that no attempt was made to consult the likes of Evidence Based Eating New Zealand or Doctors for Nutrition. Had they done so, they would have received an explanation on why plant-based eating produces healthy iron outcomes for people following a vegan diet."

Barclay says it's high time presenters like the "laughable" Hillary Barry and Jeremy Wells got stuck in and focused down on the fact that New Zealanders have serious dietary issues. All of which are linked to our considerable consumption of dairy, red and processed meats and our low levels of fibre intake.

"The fact is our continued, and substantial consumption of inflammatory products are not only causing us to die early but also leave us with compromised immune systems that make us easy targets for the likes of Covid-19," Barclay says.

The full text of the Whole Food Living article can be read here.

Evidence Based Eating New Zealand

Doctors for Nutrition

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