Drew Petrie has lifted the lid on the diet of the playing list at Arden Street, revealing the work which goes in to preparing young players for AFL.

"When you're young and you come into a footy club, you get spoonfed and your hand gets held about what to do with every facet of being a professional athlete. The diet is one of them," Petrie told the AFL Exchange podcast.

"Our dietician, in your first couple of years, is constantly checking your skinfolds."

PRESS PLAY above to listen to Petrie discussing diet.

Part of the process in being 'spoon-fed', as Petrie puts it, is a big focus on each meal and a goal weight.

"When you come into a footy club most players have to put on a bit of weight," he explained.

"There's the proteins, your general foods and also a bit of supplementation through shakes and all that.

"On the other side, if a player has to lose weight, they also have to follow some pretty strict diet plans.

"You get your handouts explaining what meals you should eat early in the week, what you should eat closer to a game and in the pre-season as well."

However all the work doesn't fall to the club dietician and chef. Extra work is put in so the players can take care of themselves away from football.

"There's also cooking classes, because a lot of players that come to footy clubs are 18-years-old and have never lived out of home before.

"When you're playing junior footy you can eat anything and get away with it but at AFL level it's a bit different."

There is still room within the confines of the AFL environment to have a different diet. Two younger players differ from the majority of the Kangaroos' list.

"A couple of our players - Ben Jacobs and Tim McGenniss - are on a paleo diet, similar to Gary Ablett."

The paleolithic diet typically consists of fish, grass-fed pasture-raised meats, eggs, vegetables, fruit, fungi, roots, and nuts, and excludes what are perceived to be agricultural products like grains, legumes, dairy products, potatoes, refined salt, refined sugar, and processed oils. Basically if a caveman ate it, you can eat it.

"At the moment we have a chef who cooks breakfast and lunch for us while we're at the club and these two boys bring in their own pre-cooked food.

"But most of the players on our list just have a balanced diet.

"There's foods you stay away from like the fast foods, the high-fat, high-sugar foods. I love cakes and vanilla slices. I'd have one a day if I could, but they're no good for my hips.

"There's no great hidden tricks with a footy player's diet. It's good, balanced food. We're sensible with what we do."

Interestingly enough, the goal isn't always to have a team full of low-fat, low-skinfold players.

A few years ago, Petrie and the side had a test at the Musashi lab in Melbourne, where he received interesting news.

"My body fat percentage was seven per cent, which was the lowest at the club at the time. The person who did the test said that's not necessarily the best to have the lowest because some players perform better with a little bit more fat in their body.

"If you have too low of a body fat percentage your immune system is not as strong, so you can't fight off bugs.

"Skinniest isn't always the best, it's whatever suits an individual person."