Photo: Quintin Soloviev via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0, cropped.
Who says football players need meat? At Tennessee Titans training camp this week, ESPN's Cameron Wolfe found "the 15-and-growing number of Tennessee Titans players" who have signed up for a plant-based meal plan, and 250-pound players hunting through black bags for spare vegan lunches after practice.
It all started at home. Linebacker Derrick Morgan switched to a plant-based diet around a year and a half ago, and his wife Charity, a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef, re-trained herself to cook fully vegan food for him. Then his team-mates smelled it. Now Charity cooks breakfast and lunch for the group, plant-based versions of what the players grew up on, like soy curl "chicken" tacos with beans and rice, and many of them have asked for dinners to take home too.
Morgan, a pass rusher, admits he once believed the myth himself.
Overcoming the preconceived notions is the biggest part. I was a part of it. I used to believe athletes had to eat meat to maintain play, then I educated myself.
The players say they can feel the difference. Defensive lineman Jurrell Casey, an early convert, told ESPN last season: "I saw how fluid my body was moving around; my body wasn't aching anymore. I knew it was the right decision. My body heals 10 times faster." Charity builds the protein into every meal with kale, spinach, nuts, beans, lentils, seitan and hemp seeds. Not everyone is strict about it, and DaQuan Jones has kept a weekly chicken meal, but they keep coming back for more. "If you want them to play like warriors, we must feed them like it," Charity said.
The Titans join a list of big men doing just fine without meat. NBA star Kyrie Irving promoted a vegan diet in a Nike advert, JaVale McGee won another NBA title in June, and this week Manchester United's Chris Smalling went fully vegan. The science backs them up, too: plant protein builds muscle just as well.
The 'weak vegan' stereotype just got sacked.