Channel 4 continues its Food Fight Series with the slightly silly but still interesting programme. They took four people who were obese and very unfit and brought them to Pakistan to the Shimshal tribe. This tribe is considered to be one of the healthiest on the planet. The aim was to see if the health of the "Fast Food Junkies" would improve.
They picked a nicely mixed bunch, each with a different angle on eating badly. One man ate four Indian takeaways a week, the other had a sedentary lifestyle and hated veg. One woman ate sweets and biscuits constantly, the other drank herself silly all the time.
The doctor who was with them tried the shock tactics approach "you'll kill your liver" "you are 20 but have the body of a 50 year old" etc etc but to no avail.
They were completely grossed out by the food offered to them which included 8 year old yak butter and yak cheese. I found this diet interesting as it basically proves that you can live on tons of dairy as long as you have a very healthy energetic outdoor lifestyle. The Shimshal people ate little meat and mainly concentrated on pulses, breads, vegetables etc.
Of course bit by bit the lazy sods got into the swing of things. One had to head home due to appendicitis. There was a bit of silly nonsense with the English people feeding fry-ups and take away curries to the locals so they could compare food. There was also the obligatory yak slaughter to remind us all where food comes from.
At the end of the month, there was no huge surprise in the fact that they all lost a large amount of weight. What did surprise me was that the 50 year old man had got rid of 88% of the dangerous fat in his liver. Or "two fat ladies" as the doctor said.
Not the greatest TV programme ever made but it actually caused me to have a plum instead of nibbling on salami out of the fridge.
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