While visions of weak, insipid vegans are thankfully long behind us since veganism became an engrained, and ever-growing lifestyle choice, there are still people who don’t believe that you can pair a vegan diet with an active lifestyle. Despite the availability of supplements, great vegan recipes, and plenty of evidence to the contrary, blind-sided people just don’t like to admit that a plant-based reality is a viable one.
Despite the laughability of these doubts in an age where there are as many as 88 million healthy and functioning vegans, limiting beliefs can still hold people back from trying a plant-based lifestyle. That’s bad news for health and planetary reasons, and it’s a setback that many people could overcome by simply realising that veganism works for all different lifestyles, including the fully active ones lived by our most notable sporting figures.
Yes, that’s right – respected sports people are vegans too, and we’re going to consider who they are, and why their stance on veganism is so important.
The three most notable vegan figures in the sporting world
- David Bass: While many vegans would disagree with his line of work, jockey David Bass has, at least, been campaigning for good since discovering a plant-based diet between training sessions and horse racing articles back in 2019. Bass’ reasons for following veganism are both health and environmentally driven, and the jockey claims he went from being a full-on meat eater to an avid vegan because “I actually educated myself with what’s going on with the climate and diet, and I made the decision to try it.’ On being vegan, Bass claims, ‘It’s hard to say if it has made me a better jockey, but it has made me healthier, sharper, possibly fitter?”
- Lewis Hamilton: Lewis Hamilton is so invested in veganism that he actually owns Neat Burger, his very own chain of vegan fast-food restaurants. Hamilton became vegan in 2017 after watching the Netflix documentary ‘What the Health?’, and even before that, claimed that he was on a mission to go vegan because “animal cruelty, global warming, and our personal health is at stake.”
- Alex Morgan: FIFA Women’s World Cup champion Alex Morgan is a fierce proponent of plant-based diets, specifically for peak athletic performance. Voted as one of PETA’s most beautiful vegan celebrities back in 2019, Morgan claims, “I never thought it would be possible to be playing at an elite level as a professional athlete with a plant-based diet. Then I realised it wasn’t detrimental at all.”
Why plant-based professional athletes matter
As the allure of plant-based meat alternatives fades, vegan sporting figures are more important than ever. Athletes who have to stick to strict, non-processed, wholefood-heavy plant-based diets are certainly a testament to what veganism looks like when it’s done well. With most vegan sporting figures claiming that veganism has helped their performance in some way, these individuals are certainly proof that veganism has the power to transform our bodies, as much as our minds, if we approach it in the right ways.