Are Veg Athletes Healthy?
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They sure are.
There’s a good article about vegetarian and vegan athletes in ESPN. It profiles a variety of veg athletes and proves that plant foods are healthy for athletes.
Here’s an intro:
“Already we’ve seen a number of world-class athletes move toward vegan and vegetarian diets. NBA guard Salim Stoudamire, former NFLers Desmond Howard and Ricky Williams, track and field greats Carl Lewis and Edwin Moses and others have followed that path. Four other athletes who have made the switch to vegan or vegetarian diets recently shared their thoughts on these and other meaty issues tied to their choices. Here’s what they had to say”
And here are a few snippets:
1) “People were still making fun of me, because I think they wanted to make themselves feel better,” [Tony] Gonzalez explained. “I’d be ordering salad, potatoes, veggies. I think they felt guilty. Unless you’ve been in a cave, you know what’s healthy and what’s not healthy. But most of them still keep eating what they’ve been eating, because they think that’s the only way to get enough protein and compete at a high level.”
2) As his career evolved, so did [Mac Danzig's] diet. [...] His role model was strength and conditioning instructor Mike Mahler. Danzig followed Mahler’s diet down to the smallest detail. If this famed fitness guru could do it, that was proof enough for Danzig that he could do it, too. Danzig won his first fight after the switch, giving him further inspiration.
3) Like Danzig, [Scott] Jurek says his diet does help him indirectly, in that it helps him recover from the pounding that his sport dishes out. [...]
“For me, it’s about optimizing health. It’s about lifestyle and longevity. Then you think about what vegetarian diets can do for the mass population, in terms of lower consumption of resources. When you look at the numbers, it’s pretty staggering.”
The article cited is excellent.
What are very interesting are the comments. Mostly supportive, some individuals actually provide more evidence to support the premise, others, vegetarians or vegans themselves, argue in favor of the position that a diet free of meat is absolutely healthy. And then you get those few who simply cannot accept reality: “I don’t know about this – you just can’t get the protein, blah, blah, blah.” Even though the entire article is about how you CAN get the protein, etc. without meat.
I don’t know if they’re stupid, or they didn’t read the article, or they’re just trying – oh so hard, please be true, please be ture – to deceive themselves.
~ Recent blog post: "An interest prior to conception?" – Redux at http://www.not-quiteright.net/tvg ~
I would have personally assumed that you would have to have meat in your diet to get enough protein to be healthy enough to be an athlete. I’m glad that you proved me wrong though. Thank you.
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If all people were to follow these athlete’s examples, we would surly have a country of healthy people. I fear that parents don’t give their children ‘healthy’ food as much anymore. My children were forced to eat their vegetables, but now my grandkids won’t even touch them. I worry that their diet is lacking, but there’s no talking to my son about it.
You keep it up now, undsertand? Really good to know.