I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! viewers were left stunned after Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly unveiled the ‘exact amount’ of food the campmates receive each day

The celeb contingent on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! is fully aware their main meals will majorly be rice and beans for an extended time. They have the opportunity to bag extra grub, like meat and vegetables, by bagging stars in the Bushtucker Trials, but success has been hard to come by recently.

Northern Ireland’s radio DJ Dean McCullough has failed to secure all the stars on offer during his stints in the show’s challenges for the third consecutive time. When stars are missed, as happened in the Drown in the Dumps trial featuring Dean and social media influencer GK Barry, the diet defaults to simple rice and beans.

Shock rippled through the fanbase when they clocked just how skimpy the campmates’ portions actually are. A TikTok clip that went viral showed presenting icons Ant McPartlin, age 49, and Declan Donnelly, also 49, revealing “the exact amount” each jungle star gets daily and could barely contain their giggles leaving fans utterly astounded.

Read more I’m A Celeb’s Ant McPartlin addresses ‘quite unprofessional’ behaviour with Dean McCullough

While holding two minuscule brown paper sacks, Ant admitted: “This is per person, per day. That’s it. If they don’t do very well in the trials this is all they get.”, reports OK!.

Exposing the scant food allocations on-air by pouring them into takeaway boxes, Dec remarked: “They really do rely on what they win in the trials because […],” while Ant added: “That’s not a lot.”

This jaw-dropping revelation sparked a heated debate on social media. One I’m A Celebrity viewer expressed their astonishment, tweeting: “Per day? ? ? Omg”, while another reacted with shock: “That’s just ridiculous.”

Another user queried: “Wait…. Why so little per day.” On the other hand, some individuals believed the portions weren’t excessively small. A user argued: “That’s actually not a bad ration tbh.. Not saying it’s yummy but you could survive for years on it,” while another suggested: “That’ll fill you up for a good while though once it’s cooked.”

Dr Martin Kinsella from Re-enhance clinic pointed out to Daily Star Online that while consuming small portions may be feasible for the brief duration of the celebrities’ stay, occasional calorie restriction can have benefits, including enhancing gut health, improving insulin sensitivity, and reducing body fat. Dr Kinsella elaborated: “While it is important over a long term period to have a balanced diet, and not eradicate many food types, short periods of a few weeks of calorie and food restriction are really good to help improve gut health, improve insulin sensitivity and reduce body fat. Most essential nutrients can be generally obtained through pulses and beans etc.”

Kiran Jones, a clinical pharmacist at Oxford Online Pharmacy, has sounded the alarm over this weight loss strategy. Chatting with the Daily Record, she cautioned: “We need to remember that, as well as not being a safe way to lose weight (the safe amount to lose is one to two pounds per week), it’s not a nutritionally healthy diet to follow. That’s because the ‘basic’ 700-calorie diet consists of rice and beans, which, while not necessarily bad for you, as together they make a meal full of carbohydrates, fibre, essential amino acids and protein, they’re lacking in several key vitamins and minerals.”