Why I’m Embracing A Plant-Based Diet (And Why You Might Want To Too)

Today, I boldly go where many have gone before. I am embracing a plant-based diet and saying goodbye to meat and dairy for December. It’s The 30-Day Great American Vegan Challenge.

That’s what I’m calling it. And it’s game-on.

I know that eating a plant-based diet is perhaps the most climate affirmative action we can take in our personal lives to combat climate change. But, honestly, that’s not what convinced me to give it a go.

This past Saturday evening, while still recovering from my turkey-day food coma, I watched The Game Changers, a documentary now on Netflix. The movie explores through the eyes of James Wilks, an elite Special Forces trainer and The Ultimate Fighter winner, how top athletes and first responders are embracing a plant-based diet because it leads to optimal performance.

I had no idea that the gladiators of ancient Rome ate plants. Or that modern-day gladiator and UFC fighting champ Conor McGregor had his undefeated streak snapped by Nate Diaz, a vegan. Or that at age 30, Carl Lewis was on a vegan diet when he set the world record for the 100-meter dash!

Over a dozen NFL players on the Tennessee Titans are vegan. Patrik Baboumian, the strongest man in the world, is, yes, vegan.

This documentary floored me.

I’ve loved sports my whole life. I was six years old when Bucky Dent, the shortstop for the Yankees, hit one of the most improbable home runs in baseball history to propel the Yankees past the Red Sox and into the 1978 playoffs. I remember crowding around the small TV set in my great grandpa’s sunroom and jumping up and down when the ball sailed over the Green Monster, i.e. the left-field wall, of Fenway Park. Athletes were my heroes.

I was fourteen in 1986 when tragedy struck one of my heroes. Just days after being drafted #2 overall in the NBA draft, Len Bias, an all-American basketball player at the University of Maryland, died of a cocaine overdose. I was devastated. I vowed then that I would never touch cocaine.

I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, but cocaine is not one of them.

Watching The Game Changers, I felt struck by the same sense of conviction. The movie makes the case for a vegan diet so compelling and obvious that I feel I’d be a fool not to embrace it.

The film has critics. That’s fine; it has supporters too. For me, the film rings true.

The Game Changers also delves into the impact of our meat-based diets on the planet. It makes the point loud and clear that eating plants is not just healthier for humans, but also healthier for the environment and is crucial to reigning in climate change.

So, I embark on The 30-Day Great American Vegan Challenge.

What I find positively thrilling is that this diet, which is increasingly embraced by sports champions, is also the diet touted by climate champions. That’s powerful and important because I know that we (myself included) are all much more inclined to take environmental action when doing so appeals to our enlightened self-interest and feels more like a lifestyle upgrade than a sacrifice.

Let the challenge begin, and let many of the world’s greatest athletes become the faces of climate action. What better way to inspire millions of others to follow in their footsteps and become climate champions too?