NYC Mayor Eric Adams Launches ‘Eat More Plants’ Campaign

EAT

May 25

Adams credits a plant-based lifestyle with transforming his life and helping to put his type 2 diabetes into remission.

Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, has teamed up with the Health Department to launch a new campaign that encourages New Yorkers to eat more plant-based foods for their health.

The ‘Eat A Whole Lot More Plants’ campaign will see New Yorkers educated on the benefits of plant-based foods and how they can help manage and reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.

“A plant-based lifestyle transformed my life, and helped put my type 2 diabetes into remission”, explained New York City Mayor Eric Adams in a statement. “By embracing the power of plants, and ensuring every neighborhood across our city has both the knowledge and the access to healthy foods, we can cultivate a healthier future, one plant-based meal at a time.”

The city is providing free plant-based recipes, nutrition tips, and food assistance via nyc.gov/nutrition, and will showcase food hacks for easy and healthy plant-based food choices via advertisements on television, radio, subways and more.

Through public education on the health benefits of plant-based foods, Adams says the campaign has the potential to help transform New Yorkers’ menus, improve their health, and build a more sustainable world.

Adams at a recent event promoting the health benefits of plant-based food in NYC. Credit: Eric Adams

Whole and minimally processed plant foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, and nuts are good for health as they are high in fiber, vitamins, and minerals and don’t come packaged with high amounts of sodium, added sugar, or unhealthy fats.

“Plants and plant-forward diets are key to our future, as a city, as a nation, and as a planet” adds Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan. “Healthy diets, full of fresh, whole foods are key to healthier, longer lives, and to preventing a range of chronic diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension. The city embraces its role in educating and promoting healthy diets and ensuring whole foods are accessible and available.”

A Plant-Powered New York

This latest campaign follows several other city-wide efforts to help New Yorkers consume more healthy, plant-based foods, as part of Adams’ ongoing commitment to improve the food environment and combat climate change throughout New York.

Last year, public schools in New York introduced an entirely vegan menu every Friday as part of the Plant-Power Fridays initiative. Aimed at tackling healthcare crises like childhood obesity, childhood diabetes, and asthma, the scheme results in around 1.1 million school children eating plant-based meals at school at least once a week.

Another recent health-focused initiative saw hospital menus receive a plant-based makeover, with New York City public hospitals now serving plant-based meals as the default option. While patients are still welcome to request meat options, the program has proven an effective way to encourage healthier choices, with more than half of all patients choosing the plant-based meals despite only 1 percent of patients actively following a vegan or vegetarian diet.

Eric Adams’ plant-based transformation

In 2016, Adams credited his switch to a plant-based diet with helping to cure his own type 2 diabetes and partial blindness. Since then he’s worked to introduce plant-based food initiatives in hospitals, schools, prisons, and communities across New York City.

Species Unite invited Eric Adams onto the podcast back in 2019, when he was the Brooklyn Borough President, to talk about his incredible plant-based health journey so far. Listen to the conversation here.

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