Going vegan?!?!

I’ve always considered myself a bit of a man’s man. I’m an Eagle Scout, super comfortable in the wilderness. I ride motorcycles, and have rebuilt them too. I love AC/DC. I play guitar in rock bands. I smoke pipes and cigars on occasion, and know far more about it than I care to admit here. I am an acclaimed grill-master, short-order breakfast cook, and omelet chef to my family. I make killer ribs, and even better steak. So WTF am I doing going vegan?!

I blame the female. It’s all her fault. Really, it is.

Gabrielle is supposed to write a research paper for her English class, and she was considering writing about the financial impact the Olympic Games have on the hosting city, being that they are cancelled this year. Two days later, she comes out of that rabbit whole with a documentary she wants to show me. It’s called The Game Changers (and it’s on Netflix). I didn’t know why she wanted me to watch it, but she mentioned something about “trying it out together.” Being the manly-man I am, I naturally thought she was referring to some bedroom activity. Boy, was I wrong…

Turns out, this documentary is about elite athletes who have chosen to eat a plant-based diet for athletic performance reasons. It outlines a number of anecdotal and scientific-based arguments to back up why these athletes have made this choice. It gives explanations, examples, study data, and even rudimentary experiments conducted during the documentary to drive home the point.

I’ve always heard that going vegan wasn’t a good idea because it is hard to build muscle mass, because you need animal proteins as plant-based proteins aren’t complete, and that men shouldn’t eat soy because it makes your balls shrink. The documentary spends quite a lot of time debunking these myths, and did a really good job of convincing me, or at least making me actually want to research some of this stuff.

One of the things I was really encouraged by was the number of people describing how much more energy they had, and how much better they felt after switching to a plant-based diet. Low energy is something that I’ve struggled with for years. I have to admit, I do usually have a hard time being productive after I eat a steak. But I also get really tired after eating just a turkey sandwich for lunch too. The thought of not having this level of lethargy sounds really good. Almost enough to try it out…

Another interesting point, that bears further investigation, was that a plant-based diet can reduce inflammation, or rather that a diet with animal products can lead to more inflammation. Having two herniated discs in my neck and an 9-week old ankle injury that is still swollen, this sounds pretty enticing too. Again, nearly enough reason to at least try it out….

But then they had a doctor that described the effects of a plant-based diet on the male anatomy. This is where my ears perked up…that is once I recovered from laughing! He attested that the rigidity and duration of erections after starting a plant-based diet (even after one day) were increased significantly. Now I see why Gabrielle wanted to try this out. Oh well, I guess it could work out for me too.

“Honey, hold the meat tonight…”