Power up with plants

LAUREN TAYLOR chats to internet personality Jeffrey Boadi about going plant-based and fuelling his fitness

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WHEN Jeffrey Boadi first considered giving up meat, fish and dairy, he didn’t think he could do it. The content creator and former semiprofessional footballer was used to eating “three or four eggs every single day” plus a lot of chicken and fish.

“Being an athlete, you think you need to get as much protein in your diet as possible,’ he says. “Around two years before I went plant-based, a guy I knew at the time said he was going to give it a try. My initial, visceral reaction was to be like, ‘how could you do that? I need meat or I'll wither away!’”

And, having grown up in a Ghanaian household, “I genuinely felt like a meal wasn’t complete without meat.” Yet, Jeffrey, has now been plant-based for eight years - having changed his diet entirely overnight after watching the 2017 Netflix documentary What The Health. And, he says, “I've put on a fair amount of muscle over the years.”

The 37-year-old, who has just released his debut cookbook, Plant Fuel, reckons it’s all about awareness - particularly around protein. “I think maybe we have a bit of ignorance to some degree - I know I had. It comes down to understanding that there are many foods rich in protein that you can incorporate into your diet - tofu, tempeh, beans, lentils, chickpeas, lentil pasta.

“It's not necessarily about meat, per se, it’s about protein as a macronutrient [the essential nutrients your body needs in large amounts] - and you can get that across a number of different foods.”