Phil Keoghan has been hosting The Amazing Race since it hit the TV premiere schedule back in 2001. He has more than twenty years of experience heading from country to country and challenge to challenge on one of the best reality shows still airing, which means he’s seen a lot of excellent choices the show has made, as well as not-so-wonderful twists over the years. He was recently asked which challenges he personally does and does not enjoy when the show is filming, and I have to say that I agree with him.
The Amazing Race has actually repeated challenges during its long and storied history on CBS, but even when challenges aren’t repeated they often fall into similar buckets. For example, there might be difficult memory challenges contestants face. Each season there’s usually at least one activity in which a certain number of items are buried/available and the cast has to track those items down, with the task growing more onerous as more objects are found. There are usually some tasks that involve fitness and physical labor, some tasks that involve musical or dance challenges (or both), and some tasks that involve high octane activities and maybe even facing fears (like heights). Phil and co. love getting contestants out of their comfort zones.
The point is, he's seen a lot as he travels with the Race teams around the world, but the challenge Phil most disdains? Anything that involves food.
I'm not so much into the food [challenges], like that tarantula last season. Like, when you get to the body and it's all milky and icky and gooey? I'm not into that. But adventure stuff? I'm the first to put up my hand.
In an interview with ET, Phil explained exactly why the food challenges aren’t his cup of tea. He doesn’t want to eat bugs or other weird foods his palate isn’t used to. I get it. The food challenges would be bad for me too, and not just because the thought of eating a bug really, really grosses me out.
Sometimes it's literally a gross amount or circumstance for food. There was another time in Season 7 where the contestants were tasked with eating four pounds of barbecued meat. Yes, lbs. This was the well-known season featuring former Survivor champion Rob Mariano and he got other people to actually quit the heinous challenge with him. Classic.
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I'm not sure given what Mr. Keoghan says here that he even blames Rob Mariano for that bit of gameplay, though it didn't ultimately land him or his partner Amber the "W" that season.
But back to food challenges. Another time, there was a spicy soup challenge that still gives me weird stomach sensations thinking about it. People were like throwing up and re-eating it, if I'm remembering correctly. It was really icky.
Granted, a lot of times the show doesn't go for as much shock value in the food tasks these days, and instead makes the food either a fun little cultural reward or some sort of memory challenge, as happened with the contestants having to remember what steak cuts look like this past season.
If it's one of these food tasks, where you get to eat a cool regional food at a food truck or maybe recite a poem and then drink a beer or coffee or something, I think I’d be fine. But it’s the weird food challenges that Phil Keoghan is talking about, and it’s the weird food challenges I’m pretty sure would be my downfall too.
Plenty of other people hate heights, and my husband has specifically told me to my face a dance challenge would be the worst day of his life, so there's no wrong answer here. Being well-rounded is certainly a help during each leg of the race. Now, if only The Amazing Race would fix its biggest problem...
