Thursday, November 21, 2019

Athlete's Heart Followup (Plant based diet)

Plant based diet for runners
After my recent post mentioning all the hamburgers that I could potentially eat after hearing the cardiologist’s feedback, I am barraged by angry messages from all my plant-based diet triathlete teammates. They objected to my selfish disregard for the impact of beef production on the environment.  

So in order to mitigate the climate impact of eating hamburgers, I fly to the US where the plant-based Impossible Burger has suddenly become ubiquitous.  I am able to stop by a nearby Burger King after a training session and experience the genetically modified burger that my teammates have been endlessly talking about.  

At $8 for the Whopper and a small coffee, it is not a bargain - economies of scale have not kicked in yet on what I assume would be large potential savings from lab-based production.


As far as the taste test?  Well, it totally tastes like any other Whopper as far as I remember.  I am not saying that is good or bad  (one thing I would definitely say is the BK Cafe coffee was surprising good).

As far as the long-term nutritional trade-off?  I have no idea, that does not seem at all clear, or the point of the Impossible Burger anyway (the objective was helping the environment).   But I do have to think that if you go to a fast food restaurant and default to the accompanying fries and large soda meal plan you are compromising your training regime.

But now after eating the plant-based burger and then followed up by watching the popular new Netflix documentary, Game Changers, I have to feel a bit more hopeful about this week's 10k race.