Vegan Diet
Ben Jardine explores the benefits of a vegan diet for soccer players.
The secret is out. Nowadays, many athletes choose a vegan diet to help with their recuperation time and enhance their performance on the pitch.
What is a vegan lifestyle?
Being vegan eliminates your intake of anything that comes from animals, so this primarily means not consuming meat, fish, dairy, and egg products and instead choosing a plant-based diet full of proteins, healthy fats, and vitamins.
How can a soccer player benefit from this?
More and more people are turning to a vegan diet for the health benefits. Well-planned plant-based diets are rich in protein, iron, calcium, and other essential vitamins and minerals. The plant-based sources of these nutrients tend to be low in saturated fat, high in fibre, and packed with antioxidants, helping mitigate some of the modern world's most significant health issues like obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Soccer players can benefit from this lifestyle as it helps to decrease recovery time and increase strength and endurance. Oh yes, it is also perfect for the environment and very kind to the animals.
Which well-known soccer player adopted a vegan diet?
Jermain Defoe, aged 35, has switched to being vegan a year ago and has shed light on his life diet choices by saying: "I don't find anything hard to give up because I know the feeling scoring goals gives me". No wonder it is easy for Defoe to say that after others may try their luck by trying different diets. I strongly feel that soccer players who choose a vegan diet will surely benefit in the short to long term and may have longer soccer careers. The picture is Jermain Defoe in action for Premier League side AFC Bournemouth in 2017/18 |
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Page Reference
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- JARDINE, B. (2018) Vegan Diet [WWW] Available from: https://www.brianmac.co.uk/articles/article296.htm [Accessed
About the Author
Ben Jardine has been writing for some years now, predominantly focusing on the health benefits of introducing yoga, mindfulness and vegan diets to competitive sports. Most of his topics are related to soccer, and he also enjoys writing about tennis and cricket.