The Game Changers (2018) is a documentary that promotes veganism as the recipe for advanced athleticism. In this documentary, an array of athletes are showcased as superhuman in ability, all attributing their success to a vegan diet.
However, that’s not where the story ends. What happened to these vegan athletes? Many of them have abandoned the vegan diet, gotten injured, have left their sport soon after, or were never vegan in the first place.
Courtesy of Stan “The Rhino” Efferding, author of The Vertical Diet, this list covers athletes who appeared or were mentioned in the well-funded film The Game Changers. His list was mentioned in an episode of Starting Strength Radio.
Here’s a list of athletes who went vegan, and how their journey is going
- *Tim Scheff – Quit Veganism
- *Andrew Luck – Injured, Quit football
- *CC Sabathia – Injured, Quit.
- *Novak Djokovik – injured
- *Lauri Markkanen – Early season end
- *Kyrie Irving – Knee surgery 2018. Hip and knee injury 2019.
- *Morgan Mitchell – Got slower – Finished 23rd out of 24 in recent world athletic championship.
- Tom Brady – Eats Meat
- *Demarcus Cousins – Injured.
- *Derek Morgan – Injured, retired at 30
- *Nate Diaz – Not a Vegan. Eats fish and eggs.
- *Kendrick Ferris – Got weaker. Hasn’t competed since.
- *Micheal porter – Injured. Out for season.
- *Cam Newton – Injured, underperforming, smaller, weaker, slower.
- *Patrick Baboumian – Not a competitive Strongman.
- *Bryant Jennings – Lost his last 2 fights since going vegan.
- Pat Neshek. – Injured retired.
- *Chris Paul – Injured. Retired.
- *Arian foster – Injured. Retired.
- *Deandre Hopkins – Injured
- *Brian Orakpo – Injured. Retired.
- *Jurell Casey – Injured.
- *Alex Morgan – Injured. Out for season.
- *Venus and Serena Williams – “Cheagans” (their words)
Further Reading:
People: Going Back to Meat After Eating Vegan Made Anne Hathaway Feel ‘Like a Computer Rebooting’
“So I had a piece of salmon and my brain felt like a computer rebooting…I just didn’t feel good or healthy,” she said in November, adding that she was ‘not strong.’ And after the salmon in Iceland, she ‘just felt better.”
ScienceAlert – December 2014: New Study Reveals 84% of Vegetarians Return to Meat
The researchers found that currently in the US, 2 percent of people identify themselves as vegans/vegetarians, 10 percent are former vegans/vegetarians, and 88 percent of the population have never been vegans and vegetarians. “Put another way,” says Jessica Leber at Fast Company, “they found that only one in five vegetarians and vegans maintains their diet; a full 84 percent eventually revert back to eating meat or other animal products.”
Update – August 2024: World Animals Foundation emailed me to append the newer data as that 2% of the US population consuming a vegan diet is now a little over 4%. View their article, How Many Vegans Are in the World? Exploring Veganism Growth in 2024. Here’s an excerpt:
According to the latest data, There are more than 13.4 Million vegans in the US.
Thank you for sending me updates.
