Dana Hunsinger Benbow

dana.benbow@indystar.com

Griff Whalen is toiling in the kitchen of his downtown Indianapolis apartment, in a charcoal gray T-shirt and jeans. His dog, Harper, is scrambling about after a pink tennis ball. His girlfriend is sitting nearby, chatting with Whalen about nutrients and vitamins.

It's dinner time for this NFL wide receiver, just days before his Indianapolis Colts take on the New York Giants, a guy who's just finished an intense practice and who burns up thousands of calories a day.

It's dinner time for this 24-year-old who weighs a solid 190 pounds – and who teammates say may just have the most enviable body on the team.

But what Whalen is whipping up for dinner is not anything you'd expect for an NFL player, for the Colts' go-to guy for punt and kick returns this season, for a guy who on average takes in 6,000 calories and 200 grams of protein a day.

Not a perfectly seared filet mignon. Not grilled chicken. Not baked potatoes. Not creamy pasta.

Whalen is a leaf eater. A plant-based-only eater. His dietary opponents are ones he takes as seriously as his opponents on the field. No meats, fish or dairy. No processed food, no sugar, no oil.

"I feel a lot lighter, faster, quicker on the field," says Whalen, who switched to a plant-based diet in the spring after girlfriend Katy Osadetz got him started. "There isn't that heavy feeling, that groggy feeling after I eat."

So on the menu this night is stir fry.

Whalen takes out a pan, adds a few drops of water and throws in the onions he's chopped up. They will secrete their own natural oils, he says. No need for olive oil or vegetable oil.

He adds sweet potatoes, carrots, spinach, zucchini, squash, black beans and garbanzo beans. More drips of water. Cayenne pepper, oregano and garlic.

The resulting aroma smells delicious. And, Whalen says, tastes that way, too. But why he's eating this green diet goes beyond taste or his performance on the field. A vegan diet claims to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes. It has been said that vegans live, on average, 12 years longer than their non-vegan counterparts.

"It's all been proven," he says.

Despite the health benefits and Whalen's decided push for such a diet, being a vegan is not the most popular move to make in the NFL. The few other players who have professed plant-only diets have riled up fans, media pundits and even teammates.

They'll ruin the team's chances of a winning season. They'll be weaker on the field. They'll get tackled and outplayed more easily. Meat is a must for the NFL. Protein. Manly food. To eat plants-only is foolish for a football player.

Whalen scoffs at that. He often tweets the love of his diet with the hashtag #plantbased. He posts pictures of his plant-infused snacks.

And he takes the friendly ribbing from his meat and dairy and fried food-eating teammates in stride. After all, he's able to educate them.

"There's a little bit of playful kidding, but also a lot of good conversations come up about it," he said. "They have questions. A lot of the guys know so little about it."

Whalen's dietary choice piqued the interest of punter Pat McAfee. During the off-season, he gave it a try.

"I decided I wanted to change my body a bit," said McAfee. "I had no idea what exactly I wanted, but I knew if it looked anything like Griff Whalen's, I'd be good to go. The dude might have a 14-pack."

So, McAfee had Colts executive chef DeWitt Jackson start whipping up the same exact meals that Whalen was eating. He calls it "some of the most interesting stuff I've ever consumed."

Jackson, the longtime Colts chef, says Whalen is the first Colt to ever ask for such a diet.

"It's very rare within the Colts, but other people take notice of what players do that's effective, so we get more people that start to join in parts of it," he said. "Adam Vinatieri also eats the diet that Griff is eating most of the day." Outside linebacker Daniel Adongo has a similar diet, as well.

A favorite dish that Jackson makes for Whalen is a kale salad with chopped onion, guacamole and lemon juice for dressing.

"It's what he eats like every meal," Jackson said. "So that's like a favorite thing to do."

Favorite? Not so much for McAfee.

"I learned quickly that my taste buds mean more to me than they do to Griff," McAfee said. "His commitment to his diet is one of the most impressive things I've ever seen."

McAfee's happy for Whalen and the diet regimen he's found that works for him, but McAfee also has quit the vegan lifestyle. He's with the majority of Americans.

Vegetarians make up just 5 percent of the adult population, and a mere 2 percent identify as vegans, according to a July 2012 Gallup poll.

In the NFL, that vegetarian and vegan percentage shrinks still more.

But it does exist. Take players like Arian Foster, running back for the Houston Texans, who went vegan two years ago. His choice was met with some backlash.

"I told him, 'If this doesn't work, I'm going to kick your ass,'" his teammate Brian Cushing told Yahoo! Sports.

Former NFL running back Ricky Williams, who became one of the league's first vegetarians before his 2005 season with the Miami Dolphins, has talked publicly about his decision.

"It's not compatible with the lifestyle of a professional football player on so many levels," he told "Men's Journal." "People get weird about it. They don't understand it. It goes against what they believe. And it takes a lot of work."

Whalen and his high school sweetheart and girlfriend, Osadetz, can attest to that.

"It's hard when there are chicken wings and Long's (Bakery) doughnuts right in front of your face," said Osadetz.

"Gosh, those Long's doughnuts are hard to resist," Whalen said.

But resist he does. Although Whalen didn't always eat this way – far from it.

He grew up eating Cap'n Crunch cereal every day for breakfast, fast food for dinner. And when he roomed with Colts quarterback Andrew Luck at Stanford University, his eating didn't get any better.

"Mostly dining hall food – always pasta, pizza, chicken, salad bar, that kind of stuff," he said. "Jack in the Box was close by. That was pretty regular for us. Domino's Pizza. Nothing special."

Late in his college career, though, Whalen started thinking more about what he was putting into his body. Grilled chicken and veggies became routine. And once in the NFL, with a little encouragement from Osadetz, he realized that he could take his healthy eating to a whole new level.

Osadetz, whom Whalen met at Sylvania Southview High School in Toldeo, Ohio, got him started on the diet after watching some documentaries on a plant-based diet. And while she is strict with the diet, she splurges and eats cheese every now and then. Maybe a glass of wine. Not Whalen.

Does that dedication pay off? Can a person, particularly a high-intensity athlete, really get everything they need from a plant-based diet? Is it healthy?

"It definitely is," said Lindsay Dirlam, a registered dietician at Eskenazi Health. "You just need to plan it out and make sure you're getting the protein – eating the beans, legumes."

Those non-animal sources of protein can actually be more beneficial for an athlete, she said, because they contain more complex carbohydrates and fiber.

The only vitamin that isn't available in plants is B12. But soy milk and almond milk are typically fortified with that vitamin, as are most cereals.

"Plant-based is definitely a hot topic right now," Dirlam said. "But it's very rare. I get a lot of questions about it, but very few people are actually doing it."

Thus, the naysayers abound, especially when it comes to an NFL athlete eating such a diet.

"As to the naysayers, I love animal protein of all varieties but I recognize that there are other options out there," said Ryan Downey, Whalen's NFL agent with 360SportsLLC. "I'd encourage everyone to be as experimental and creative with their diet as Griff has to discover what foods make them feel the most productive."

Experimenting is something that Whalen still does.

"I don't at all consider myself at a finished stage," he said. "I just know how much better I feel."

And there is one other family member joining in with Whalen's healthy eating.

Harper, who eats Orijen, an all-natural dog food.

Follow Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow

EAT LIKE GRIFF WHALEN

Every morning, he makes a concoction of four ounces of water, a pinch of baking soda, a tablespoon lemon juice, a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, a tablespoon of blackstrap molasses and sea salt.

"As he likes to describe it, it's flat soda with no sugar," said Osadetz. "But it kind of wakes up your system and gets your metabolism going."

Breakfast: Engine 2 cereal (shredded wheat, rolled oats, whole grains) with almond milk, banana, chia and flax seeds. Smoothie with fruits, veggies, nuts, spinach and kale.

Snack: Apple, pear, orange or carrots.

Lunch: Vega protein smoothie with kale, spinach, banana and other assorted fruit.

Dinner: Baked sweet potato with red lentil pasta and kale salad.

Bedtime snack: Two pieces of Ezekiel 4:9 flax bread, toasted, with almond butter and banana. He adds cinnamon and cocoa power. Apple.

Drinks: Green tea, almond milk or water.