The Elite Athletes Powered Entirely by Plants

Illustration by Eline Van Dam

A decade ago you’d likely find Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi eating a T-bone steak topped with fried eggs after a big workout. Today, though, the 41-year-old basketballer fuels up with soy milk smoothies blended with hemp, flaxseed, and chia seeds for breakfast; air-fried tofu, broccoli, and rice for lunch; and enchiladas stuffed with vegetables and smothered in “a plethora of vegan cheeses” for dinner. Taurasi went vegan in 2016, hoping to boost her health in the long term, and “felt the change instantly,” she says. “I could recover faster, and the things I’m doing right now on the court, I wasn’t even able to do when I was 28.”

Taurasi is at the top of her game. She’s a 10-time WNBA All-Star with three titles under her belt and the league’s leading scorer. The White Mamba, a nickname Taurasi earned from Kobe Bryant, sank her 10,000th point last year. And she plans to win her sixth gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, France—where she won’t be the only one powered entirely by plants.

Studies show veganism is increasingly popular among athletes. In a 2020 review published in the International Journal of Sports and Exercise Medicine, sports scientist Katharina Wirnitzer, PhD, estimates that up to 17 percent of people in any given group may be vegan. “It is very likely that there is no longer any social group or sports team without a vegan,” she wrote. Today elite athletes like surfer Tia Blanco, snowboarder Hannah Teter, soccer star Alex Morgan, marathoner Scott Jurek, and tennis sisters Serena and Venus Williams all eat predominantly plant-based diets. [Editor’s note: While “plant-based” refers to diets primarily composed of plants and “vegan” excludes all animal products, this article uses the terms interchangeably.]

Though skeptics have argued that a vegan diet lacks adequate protein and calories for top athletes, some competitors see the regimen as essential to their success. “I wasn’t a world champion before I was vegan, I was a world champion because I was vegan,” says Meagan Duhamel, 38, who won gold and bronze medals in team and pairs figure skating at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Duhamel, who eliminated all animal products from her diet in 2008, is an advocate of vegan sports nutrition. She retired in 2018 to coach other skaters and still credits her athletic success to daily bowls of oatmeal, homemade chickpea–peanut butter protein cookies, and lentil pastas.

Former Team USA weight lifter Kendrick Farris, 37, shares an experience similar to Duhamel’s. “If my competitors had injuries, it sidelined them. Meanwhile, I was able to keep going,” says Farris, a three-time Olympian who still holds US records in the clean and jerk and total weight for the 94 kg weight class. “I’m a big pancake guy,” he says. “I got a little saying, ‘pancakes with personal records.’” His go-to recipe is made with whole grain flour, mashed bananas, and almond milk and loaded up with fresh berries and maple syrup.

Powering athletic performance

No one study has unequivocally proven that a vegan diet will enhance athletic performance—but a handful of science-backed reasons could explain why plant-based foods might boost your game. “Elite-level training creates an enormous amount of oxidative damage,” says Desiree Nielsen, RD, a cookbook author and registered dietitian specializing in plant-based nutrition. “Athletes will wake up in the morning almost feeling like they have a hangover because there is so much inflammation from yesterday’s pursuits.” A vegan diet could help to stymie that inflammation.

Along with the sheer abundance of anti oxidants and phytochemicals found in plant foods, high-fiber intake—from eating piles of beans and whole grains—promotes the growth of beneficial gut bacteria. This buzzing house party of friendly microbes produces compounds like butyrate, which has been linked to reduced inflammation and improved immune function, both crucial for athletes pushing their bodies to the limit. Plant-based diets also tend to be lower in saturated fat than omnivorous ones, promoting healthier arteries, improving blood flow, and ensuring optimal oxygen delivery to muscles, possibly boosting endurance.

Routine health testing is common for all athletes, but particularly important for those who avoid animal products, says Team USA senior sports dietitian Rikki Keen, RD. That’s because essential nutrients like vitamin B12, iron, calcium, vitamin D, and omega-3s are lower in plant foods and often need to be supplemented with vitamins.

While all pro athletes need to plan their diets strategically and incorporate an abundance of nutrient-rich ingredients, eating adequate protein is especially key for vegans trying to build muscle. Plant-based sources can provide all the essential amino acids needed, but they tend to be lower in leucine—the superstar amino that is key to our bodies’ ability to grow and repair—compared to animal proteins. Vegan athletes need to eat more tofu to get the same amount of leucine as they would from a similarly portioned steak. The source doesn’t matter, though: Your body “can’t tell if that leucine you just absorbed into your bloodstream came from an animal or vegetable,” says Nielsen. “All it knows is that it got the leucine it needed for muscle building.”

Plant-based in Paris

Kitchen staff at the Paris Olympics are ready to cater to plant-based competitors. In an effort to slash the carbon footprint of our globe’s foremost athletic rendezvous, organizers are doubling the amount of vegan options available compared to the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. At least 33 percent of the food in the athletes village restaurant will be plant-based, including crispy quinoa muesli, courtesy of France’s Michelin-starred Akrame, and a hearty vegetable moussaka. Jennifer Bargisen, the vice president of culinary at Sodexo Live, the Games’ official catering partner, is most excited by the Asian, African, and Caribbean offerings. “Traditionally, all of those cuisines have a heavy plant-based focus,” says Bargisen, who’s expecting her team to serve 40,000 meals every day for two months from what will be, temporarily, “the world’s biggest restaurant.”

To consume the thousands of calories a day athletes require for energy, vegans often need to eat more food than their omnivorous peers. Constantin Preis, a 400-meter hurdler who was born in Moldova but competes for Germany, follows his intense hours-long training session with a 1,500-calorie afternoon meal, such as chili with seitan, beans, and a variety of vegetables. “It’s a lot,” he tells me, close to an entire day’s worth of food for a non-sportsperson. “I sit down for an hour and just eat.” To fuel her training-packed days, Marina Fioravanti, 30, who plays for the Brazilian women’s rugby sevens team, relies on “nutritive and tasty” staples like protein smoothies, rice and beans, lentil Bolognese, and oatmeal with chia seeds.

Vegan athletes need to be prepared for anything when traveling to destinations where their preferred foods might not be available. “I pack at least the daily amount of nutrition that I need to perform,” says Preis, who admits that his suitcase “is usually full of food.” The mental energy it can take to maintain a strictly vegan diet has given Preis second thoughts. After the Paris Games, he plans to eat meat again to simplify his meals. “I want to see how I feel if I switch it up,” he says.

Other athletes have benefited so much from their long-term plant-based diets that they want to help others eat similarly. Farris, in his home state of Louisiana, is teaching his local community about nutrition.

“We’re working here doing community events, providing people with [plant-based] options for traditional foods,” he says, referring to his initiative, BlessTheGym Forever. Duhamel now runs a blog, Lutz of Greens, where she posts training and nutrition advice along with recipes for sweet potato brownies and savory vegetable-packed pancakes. “I get messages from a lot of people asking me for help going vegan,” she says.

For Taurasi, giving up animal products has helped her tap into a vastly creative world of vegan bubbly lasagnas, build-your-own tacos, and pizzas with her family. Her diet is richly diverse, she says. “Like, I’ve had three different mushrooms in three days.” One thing, though, is almost always on the table. “We try to have beans every single day.”

Originally Appeared on Bon Appétit