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On the weekend, me and my girlfriend had
vegan lasagne, vegan pizza, vegan garlic
bread - that’s my once a week if I eat out.
I can go to vegan restaurants here now
and I’m not in the metropolitan area of
Sydney anymore. There are just options
everywhere, I think that’s a pretty ignorant
statement now. Just hashtag ‘vegan food’
and start scrolling. There’s a tonne of food
there.
Do you get enough iron and protein?
I train about nine sessions a week and
work two jobs... and I’ve had an energy
boost [since going vegan].
I am much more encouraging of people
to make their diet a bit more plant-centred.
We’re looking at 80 per cent plants, 90
per cent meat-free - I support all of that. I
know a lot of people that say, ‘That’s not
good enough’. To be honest, I think that
that’s bullshit. If people are moving in the
direction I want them moving in, then I’m
just going to encourage them and I think
they’ll start to feel better. Start cutting out
all of that junk, that trash you’ve been
eating - meat and dairy. Your asthma is
just starting to go away, your arthritis is
calming down, and inflammation starts
to reduce. You find that you’re recovering
faster, you’re getting more energy to wake
up and you’re just ready to go, not staring
around waiting for coffee. You have a
banana smoothie and you’re just firing.
You start performing better and thinking
clearer. Eventually, people are going to
choose that food over the other food.
I work as a personal trainer and when
I have people come in, a lot of the time I
don’t tell them I’m vegan. I just say, ‘Give
this a go, try this’. They’re like, ‘What’s the
best breakfast I can eat?’. And I say, ‘Get
some greens and some fruit, blend it up
and drink it. Tell me how you feel’.So you try and convert your clients?
I definitely have a bias. I don’t really start
launching the word vegan around but I
have a bias. And whenever they ask me,
‘What’s the best thing that I could eat?’,
I’m going to say, ‘Get a whole bunch of fruit
and blend it up. After you get used to that,
chuck some greens in it and blend it up.
Then, if you want to have your egg on toast
with your coffee and butter and whatever
else, have it after you’ve had your smoothie’
and sure enough, what happens? ‘Gee that
smoothie felt good, what should I have for
lunch?’. ‘Well, you know. I like to have fruit
salad, I like to have, whatever it is.’ ‘Oh,
okay, what do you like to eat for dinner?’
The thing is, the only suggestions they’re
going to get from me is going to be that. ‘I
like stir fry with some kind of whole grain.
I personally enjoy tofu, so I make some tofu
and I put some veggies in it’. ‘Do you drink
milk?’. ‘I don’t really like to drink milk;