When "Free Solo" climber Alex Honnold decided to live more sustainably, he started with food.
"One of the first real changes I made in my life in an effort to be slightly lower-impact on the world was changing my diet a little bit," he told The Cool Down, "which meant going mostly vegetarian, semi-vegan — basically just trying to minimize my consumption of animal products."
That's because the meat production process is a huge source of polluting gases.
So, what does that "semivegan" change look like IRL? When our team at The Cool Down spent the day with Honnold at his home outside of Las Vegas, we got a tour of his pantry and a peek into his refrigerator. Here's what Honnold typically eats every day:
🥬 Athletic Greens in the morning
🥚 Plus eggs or muesli with berries
🍎 An afternoon smoothie
🥗 Complex salads for dinner: usually bowls full of veggies, nuts, beans, rice, or potatoes (Thai, Indian, Greek, "a little bit of everything")
❌ Throughout the day, no coffee, tea, alcohol, or carbonated water — just regular water and Athletic Greens powder
Honnold's team told us he also has "a massive sweet tooth, and a box of donuts can be his kryptonite: He calls himself a 'finisher,' as he'll finish what gets put in front of him."
"It's funny. People ask all the time: 'How do you get your protein? What do you eat?'" Honnold told us. "You just eat things. You eat plants, grains, legumes. Have you ever seen a panda? It lives largely on bamboo!"
In fact, many other of the world's highest-performing athletes have gone plant-based too — from Venus Williams to Chris Paul.
A new study from The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that a diet that benefits the planet is also the best diet for your health, lowering risks of heart disease, cancer, and chronic diseases. This "planetary health diet," created by the EAT-Lancet Commission, emphasizes eating lots of plants, nuts, and beans with minimal meat, fish, eggs, and dairy.
Eating a mainly plant-based diet is just one way Honnold has become a model for living more sustainably. He has also committed to giving one-third of his income to climate solutions through his organization, The Honnold Foundation, which supports community-led solutions to expand renewable energy. Not to mention:
• He has started keeping a diary of sustainable lifestyle changes, just as he tracks his climbs
• He's obsessed with his electric truck and powers his entire home with solar energy
• He typically composts his food every morning with his daughter June
• After he wrecked the iconic van from "Free Solo," he replaced it with a solar-powered van that cooks on induction (he also cooks on induction in his kitchen)
"With environmental issues, I think it makes sense to start with the thing that's easy and work from there," he said. "Taking any step at all is better than doing nothing."
So, when it comes to what Honnold and the rest of us eat, replacing just one meat-focused meal a week can have a big difference on your health and the planet. According to New York Times reporting from a few years back, if everyone in the United States collectively replaced a quarter of our beef, pork, and poultry consumption with vegetables, it would avoid 82 million metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution per year — more than 500 pounds per person annually.
If you're looking to eat more vegetables and less meat, check our guide for tips and inspiration.
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