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CityAndStateNY.com
January 10, 2022
I ATE LIKE ERIC ADAMS FOR A WEEK By Caitlin Dorman In 2016, New York City Mayor Eric Adams woke up blind, went to the doctor and discovered he had diabetes. It’s a story Adams likes to tell because there’s a happy ending: after radically altering his lifestyle and committing to an aggressively healthy, plant-based diet, Adams reversed his diagnosis. While plenty of people are curious about what the city’s first vegan mayor’s plans are for keeping New Yorkers healthy, I was curious to learn more about what it’s like to eat like Adams on a day-to-day basis. Even if it all went up in flames, I figured I could gain a new appreciation for the kind of discipline it takes to be a New Yorker who doesn’t eat bagels. Using Adams’ cookbook, “Healthy At Last: A PlantBased Approach to Preventing and Reversing Diabetes and Other Chronic Illnesses,” as my guide, along with a well-placed source/food guru on his staff, I embarked on a weeklong project to do my absolute best to eat like Adams. Following Adams’ diet, as described in “Healthy At Last,” means skipping meat, fish, dairy, eggs or as Adams puts it: “nothing that has a face and a mother.” It also involves avoiding processed foods, salt, sugar and cooking with or adding oil to your food – Adams says he sautés his food with broth, wine or water. Eating mostly fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains is the ultimate goal.
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Oatmeal with sliced peaches and a few lightly salted nuts for breakfast, a depressing bowl of chickpeas with rice vinegar and dried herbs, and then dinner was a recipe from “Healthy At Last,” a sliced polenta and black bean dish that was actually delicious! As bland as the lunch chickpeas were, the worst part of the day was waking up to find my partner had purchased rolled oats for our oatmeal – Adams only eats steel cut. Steel cut oats are less processed, but I like to imagine the mayor demands a cereal as chiseled as he is.
One cup of Oatly yogurt with sliced banana for breakfast, a triumphant return to chickpeas for lunch (this time with some chopped up celery, fresh parsley and a lot of lemon juice), and then dinner is … a vegan Chipotle burrito bowl. Sure, it was vegan, but its high salt content left me feeling as though I had betrayed Adams, a feeling that stuck with me longer than my Chipotle food baby.
A single banana for breakfast because I’m in my minimalist era, leftover polenta and beans for lunch, but things fall apart at dinner after I crash a friend’s barbecue. All I could eat were two skewers of grilled zucchini and to add insult to injury they were absolutely slathered in olive oil.
LEV RADIN/PACIFIC PRESS/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES; NORA CAROL PHOTOGRAPHY, CLAUDIA TOTIR, MAREN CARUSO, JOHNER IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES; PIXEL-SHOT/ SHUTTERSTOCK
And no, I'm not giving up olive oil anytime soon.
