THAT VEGAN THING

I still can’t believe I’m doing that vegan thing! Heck, I used to think vegans were crazy and from another planet. No animal products? No way!

Four years ago, I was the normal guy who ate meat 3 meals a day, loved scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast, ate pizza with lots of cheese and had no problem drinking 2 or 3 glasses of milk a day. I was also the normal guy who was overweight preparing to turn 50-years-old.

Well, now I am one of the crazy guys who doesn’t eat meat, dairy or eggs and I don’t care about turning 53-years-old.

So how did the evolution take place and go from meat, dairy and eggs to tempeh, tofu and kale? It all started with watching the documentary, “Forks Over Knives.” The film examines the claim that most degenerative diseases can be controlled or even reversed by eating a plant-based diet.



I thought it would be an interesting story for the news to go vegan for 60 days and see how it would change my life. Wow, did it ever. I switched to a plant-based diet overnight. I weighed 228 pounds when I started.

Two months after not eating any meat, dairy or eggs, my weight dropped to 197. That’s not all. My overall cholesterol went from 128 to 87. Then there were triglycerides. They are a type of fat found in your blood that raises the risk of coronary artery disease. After going vegan for 60 days, my triglycerides plummeted from 151-69. My doctor was amazed at the changes and I decided a vegan diet for a news story would now become a lifestyle.

Four years later, I’m still vegan, weigh 185 pounds, my cholesterol numbers are still good and I’ve never felt better. Actually, I have felt so good that I have now ran 3 marathons, including Boston in 2015.

This has nothing to do with bragging. I am the furthest thing from a narcissist. It has everything to do with being healthy so I can live a long and healthy life and be around when my children grow up.

In my 30 years of television news, I’ve never had so many people ask me so many questions about a specific topic. People want to know what vegans eat, where we get our protein, how do we get our children to eat healthier and what are some good recipes?

In this blog, I try to answer all of those questions by featuring recipes the entire family may enjoy.



I’m not pushing any kind of agenda or trying to take anyone’s meat, dairy or eggs away. I’m just providing some healthy new recipes to spice up your menu planning and give you an inside look at a newscaster and his family powered by plants.



If you ever have any questions or some recipes you want me to feature, please feel free to email me at jpeterson@sbgtv.

You can also follow me on Twitter @jeffwgme and Facebook