In what appears to be commercial swipe by Nine at rival Seven, A Current Affair has attacked the My Kitchen Rules host over his advocacy of the paleo diet.

Labelling Evans "the most controversial star on Australian TV" ACA presenter Cameron Williams introduced a report by Ben McCormack who proceeded to head a transparent attack on "Paleo Pete", calling him "popular, polarising, unqualified and dangerous".

Evans told Fairfax Media he had responded to the report on his Facebook page, where in his post earlier on Tuesday, he said it was "fascinating that all this backlash is over a chef".

"I would also like to thank everyone that has voiced their support on social media after last night's 'witch-hunt' TV segment doing their best to smear my name and create fear."

He also told Fairfax: "You could look at the 700 or so comments on A Current Affairs' Facebook page in support of this or the 1000s of comments on my Facebook page to see the consensus."

One Facebook comment on ACA's page said it was: "A prime example of journalism at it's absolute worst. Inflammatory. Ignorant. One-sided. And just plain stupid. Do your research ACA."

Evans has come under fire in the past for his promotion of a paleo recipe book for babies pulled in March after warnings it could be harmful.

Why A Current Affair decided to launch its attack this week, however, is unclear.

Words such as "extreme" and "danger" were frequently used, as were references to Evans "lucrative" income from being a TV chef.

The report claimed Evans was targeting "big money" through his claims from his "thousands of loyal worshippers". There was a graphic lampooning the paleo diet – which is also known as the caveman diet because it omits grains and dairy in the way ancestors would have millions of years ago. The graphic featured images of cavemen and said they died at age 35 and their children suffered malnutrition in an attempt to link it to recipes from Pete Evans' cookbook, published more than 2 million years later.

ACA also contradicted itself by mocking Evan's recipes, with a shot of a page outlining lemon water, insinuating that it was a recipe for just lemon juice and water only, when the screen shot of the page clearly listed a third ingredient, apple cider vinegar.

Even the "experts" at the end of the report said a diet low in processed food has health benefits.

What was consistent in the report, however, were repeated questions over why Seven still continued to employ Evans.

Evans was not interviewed at any point in the report. It was not clear whether he was approached for comment.

A Seven spokesperson hit back by saying: "Channel Nine have tried and failed to develop their own cooking show. MKR and MasterChef are enjoying record-breaking numbers.

"It would be good to let the audiences enjoy these programs without the sour grapes attitude of Channel Nine."

Evans has been signed on for the next season of MKR, as well as other projects, the spokesperson added.

Nine has been approached for comment.

@ACurrentAffair9 you may not agree with the paleo diet but shaming Pete Evans the way you did is extremely poor journalism #disappointed— Kavisha Di Pietro (@kdipietro04) May 11, 2015

@ACurrentAffair9 slamming of Pete Evans is a disgrace! That you can air such tripe is mindboggling.— Mianne Bagger (@MianneBagger) May 12, 2015

@ACurrentAffair9 Pete Evans tells people his diet...he sells a book too. you are the worst excuse for a current affair show— pizza/face (@mypizzaface) May 11, 2015

What a laugh @ACurrentAffair9 giving Pete Evans a hard go - you guys advertise a fad diets every week as a current affairs article— Brett Potts (@BrettPottsAU) May 11, 2015