Veganuary: How Netflix’s The Game Changers and plant-based chefs are turning veganism around
Growing popularity of plant-based meat Beyond and fast food options such as Burger King’s Impossible Whopper reopen debate about links between diet and health
Arnaud Hauchon, culinary curator at Fivelements, says: “The food we eat greatly affects our mental landscape. Our brain, like any other organ, needs proper food to function properly, and with the ongoing discovery and research on gut and brain connection, it is obvious that people are just not only what they eat on the physical level but also on the mental level.”
Riding on The Game Changers wave, Green Common is offering a box set that aims to help new converters to the plant-based diet.
In Hong Kong, Green Monday’s Omnipork is creating ripples – and branching out to China and Singapore, with Taco Bell Shanghai the latest to add to the expanding Rolodex of retailers. Green Monday founder David Yeung is bringing what was previously deemed not profitable to restaurants, and Fairwood Hong Kong chairman Dennis Lo has committed to offer plant-based options at all of his outlets.
Demand for plant-based options are on the rise. Apart from plant-based meat options, there is a need to look at the implications of a plant-based diet. This Veganuary, I speak to chef Arnaud to understand the lifestyle and how we can no longer “force” people to convert to a diet.
“All of the deadliest diseases Western people face nowadays can be cured thanks to a whole food, well-managed plant based diet,” says Arnaud. He started embracing a plant-based diet about 16 years ago. “At 28 years of age, I went through quite a few life changing experiences that led to my evolution towards a vegan diet a year afterwards. My first motivations were spiritual [to follow the wish of not harming animals], I then learned about the sustainability of the diet. I intuitively knew that a plant-based diet was way more healthy.
“A badly managed plant-based diet can be detrimental, and following a plant-based diet without any understanding of basic nutrition and an overall care for your daily menu can be worse for your health,” he adds. “One needs some basic notions on nutrition to thrive on a plant-based diet.”