A vegan route to political success | Economic Times

Samak Sundaravej became famous in Thailand for his cookbook and TV show, both called Tasting & Ranting, in which he expressed colourful and populist views on food and politics. Even after he unexpectedly became prime minister, he kept doing the show until the judiciary ruled it a conflict of interest and forced him to stop. Few other politicians have written cookbooks. They profess interest in food and give out favourite recipes, but these are usually done by their partners. Even the bestselling Nigel Lawson Diet Book, from the ex-UK chancellor, was written by his wife, surprisingly without help from his famous daughter Nigella. Eric Adams has won the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York, which he is very likely to become. He has also written Healthy At Last, which describes how he overcame Type-2 diabetes with a plant-based diet. People who follow such diets have been caricatured as fanatic, illogical, elite and disdainful of delicious food. But Adams is an African-American police officer-turned mainstream politician whose father was a butcher, and what’s interesting about his book is how he shows a plant-based diet worked for him. Far from being a vote loser, it is the key to his success. Adams was diagnosed with diabetes at 56, when he almost went blind. But he might have known it was coming. In African-American families, as with many Indian families, there is a sense of inevitability about “getting sugar” — exactly what many Indians call it. Adams’s mother got it, and at a family reunion, realised she had forgotten her medication. When she asked if anyone else had some, “nearly everyone in the room pulled out a plastic case and shook their pillboxes in unison”. Indian families can tell the same story. As a politician used to solving problems, Adams refused to accept this. His research showed that plant-based diets, with exercise, could help hugely. But people were too tied to traditional foods and felt it was too hard, expensive or futile to change. Yet, Adams also learned that the traditional ‘soul food’ his family ate was based on the poor quality, high fat diets that African-Americans had learned to eat as slaves. Better eating was possible with more awareness and planning. Affordable fruits and vegetables were available, if you learned where to look for them. Figuring out how to read labels — many foods branded ‘healthy’ were not when you read the small print — but people didn’t and concluded that ‘healthy’ eating just didn’t work. Adams got his health back, and a new zeal for political change, which is propelling him towards the mayoral post. The book ends with recipes full of Indian ingredients — chickpea flour, jackfruit, cashews, kala namak, etc — in very Indian-style dishes. It is a reminder of how much traditionally plant-based Indian diets can help with diabetes if we just make tweaks like reducing dairy, refined starches and sugar. Adams has used it to achieve health and political success. Maybe an Indian politician should think of writing a book like this.