When defensive lineman David Carter set out to gain weight for football season, he added
milkshakes and entire gallons of milk into his daily routine. And the weight came, but
so did the pain, tendonitis, fatigue, and numbness. It wasn’t until he watched a documentary
about the health impact of animal products that David realized he was feeding his body’s
diseases. So this barbecue-loving, dairy-chugging, NFL defensive lineman did the unthinkable:
he went vegan. And everything changed.
Hi it's Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome to another vegan nugget. American football
is seen as a manly men’s sport. And veganism is more or less seen as the least manly way
to eat. Which is funny because artery-coating animal products end up restricting blood flow,
which is pretty important for your most manly of man organs.
David: Are you interested in learning the many reasons of why it's actually manly to
be vegan?
Paige: 28 and you already need a little blue pill? Psh! Go vegan...
Having played for the Arizona Cardinals, Dallas Cowboys, Oakland Raiders, Jacksonville Jaguars,
and Chicago Bears, David Carter was firmly entrenched in the football world of consuming
tons of animal products to maintain his size. But it came at a great cost to his health.
I’m honored to have him on the channel as part of the vegan athlete series. Without
further ado, let’s hear from David himself. And be sure to stay to the end of his interview
where he starts dropping some serious truth bombs.
Emily: Well, David, I wanted to thank you so very much for taking time out of your busy
schedule to be on the channel and share your experience.
David: Thank you, it’s great to be on your show finally. I’ve been watching the vegan
athlete series and I’m excited to be on. I appreciate it.
Emily: So, to kind of give people an idea, who might not be familiar with your story,
could you share a little bit about what was your nutrition approach for being a football
player prior to going vegan, like how did you approach your dietary regimen?
David: Before going vegan, I was just like everybody else and I thought that meat was
the only source of protein, I had to drink as much milk as possible for stronger bones
and get my protein there, as well, calcium, yeah. You know, I was all about it.
As a matter of fact, I was like that because of my family. I grew up, spent my summers on a farm, my
family owned a barbeque restaurant, so it was definitely ingrained in me growing up
that meat was the way to go, meat was the only way to get strong, as a matter of fact
my mom used to get like - she had a deep freezer and every year she would just fill that deep
freezer up with like steaks and chicken and stuff. And now that I look back at it, I’m
like, damn, how many cows - I know I ate more cows than anybody else. But anyway, that was
my approach, was to drink as much milk as possible and eat as much meat as possible.
I really didn’t eat a lot of vegetables. I used to tell people I was allergic to vegetables
because I never liked them, it was just not me. Like, I’m manly, I’m a big ass football
player. Like, I’m a man, I like my food, I’m going to eat what I’m going to eat
and, you know, that’s it. Look, that was my approach. There was really no, like, nutritional
anything to it. It was just, like, most NFL players eat this way it was just, after practice
get In-N-Out burgers, like four of them, and that’s how I’m going to build myself up
after practice, or get some Pappadeaux’s which is like, this fish place and they fry
everything. That’s what the team provides you. There’s food like that. So, that was
my outlook on nutrition, there really was none. It was just, eat whatever, and that’s
how most of the NFL is.
Emily: So, with that background, that’s a pretty strong background in eating animal
products. You kind of have it from your family, you have it from the athletic side, so what
changed, what was the impetus for going vegan, with having such, kind of a strong background
in the completely opposite direction?
David: It was really after I got released from the Arizona Cardinals. My wife and I,
we were just talking and she was like, you know, let’s watch this documentary
Forks Over Knives. And at that time, I was dealing with, I got released as I was dealing with
a lot of injuries that I had: tendonitis, early onset arthritis, I had nerve damage
in this hand. I couldn’t feel these three fingers. They were always taping these three
fingers to my index finger so they wouldn’t break off or hyperextend and snap all the
way back. I could have a little bit of control over them, because I couldn’t grab a plate.
I couldn’t do bench press because my joints were so filled with pain, I couldn’t do
bench press. I could only do a little bit of weight, 315, which is only a little bit
for me. What else, high blood pressure, they were giving me high blood pressure medication
at 25 years-old, younger than that, actually. You know, all that stuff added up and these
are all old-man diseases or old-man illnesses that I was dealing with. And I was supposed
to be a physical specimen, like a top athlete. You watch that documentary Forks Over Knives,
I know you know about it. Dr. T Colin Campbell, man he really shed some light on a lot of
the issues that I was dealing with. As a matter of fact, while I was watching Forks Over Knives
I was drinking a milkshake. And I was drinking it and I’m like, damn, this is leaching
calcium, this is leaching calcium out of my bones. It’s making me weaker. I think I’m
getting stronger, but it’s making me weaker. And I’m going to hit somebody and it’s
only going to give me more likely to have a broken bone or anything like that. And also
it causes inflammation within the body, like a constant state of inflammation and that’s
all tendonitis is and arthritis is, it’s inflammation in the joints. I’m dealing
with stuff that, after watching that movie I realized was extremely, like really preventable
and reversible. And at that point I was like, okay, I need to go vegan, like right now.
It’s clear to me that I’m suffering from these illnesses and it only makes sense that
the food that I’m eating every day is causing me to feel the way that I feel because there’s
something in it that’s not supposed to be in there.
Emily: When you went vegan, and when you made this dietary shift, how did it affect your
athletic performance and all of the ailments that you were experiencing?
David: I started going vegan February 14, and then like a month later everything just
started just going away. Like the tendonitis was gone. It was to the point, like I said,
I couldn’t bench press, I would soak in the tub, and you know, how you push yourself
out of the tub to get out? I couldn’t do that. It felt like somebody was taking a bat
to my elbows. And that all just really started going away. I felt more energy because the
pain was going away and I was like, let me go work out because I don’t feel like crap
right now, so, everything just started getting better. I told you my bench press was down
to 315 because of tendonitis and the joint pain, the nerve damage, I couldn’t really
grip anything. My bench press shot up to 450, 460, in like a month, two months’ time because,
sure because of the circulation improving in my muscles, the tendonitis going away,
the arthritis going away, the nerve damage just disappearing, going away, the hurt hand
is now stronger than this hand. So, that’s what really happened to me and you know, after
that, I was like there’s no reason for me to go back to the SAD diet, or the meat-eating
diet because - why would I just poison myself, you know? That’s really all it was, I felt
that I just cleansed myself of all that poison.
Emily: From what you’ve shared, your initial impetus for going vegan was very much from
the health side, but I know that, from quotes I’ve read of you and from the education
that you do, you go around and you do speeches and lectures, and you do talk about the ethical
side of veganism. So, how did the ethical side develop for you within your vegan journey?
David: So, to be honest, I didn’t start out as an ethical vegan at all. I had leather
everything, leather seats in my car, all that stuff. But, what happened to me, was that
once I started to develop, like seeing the benefits of the vegan diet, and I was like,
man you know wow - I really don’t need to eat meat to gain protein and that made me
think why the hell are we killing these animals for? We don’t need to eat them, we don’t
need leather. What’s the purpose of these things? And it made me think, like, that’s
where the ethical part came. And I told you I have a Great Dane, that’s my furry child,
that’s my son, and it’s like, if that were happening to him that would really hurt
me because that’s my family. And he has a nervous system, central nervous system,
he has a brain, he expresses emotion, he’s smart, he understands, he knows what’s going
on, and you know, he loves just like I love. And my wife has those same feelings. If that
were to happen to my wife, that would just drive me crazy, and that is
what got me. And they don’t want to go through this anymore than me. And not to mention,
being a black man, seeing it’s no different than slavery. As a matter of fact, a lot of
the techniques that they use in animal agriculture are from slavery, from the holocaust. So,
it’s no different. Why am I going to promote that by eating meat, or buying leather, or
buying soap with glycerin in it, that’s got dog fat in it, that’s where the ethical
side came to me. Because, you know, it’s a fight that needs to be fought just like
any other fight. People try to separate slavery and the holocaust from the animal fight, it’s
the same damn thing.
Emily: Well, thank you again so much for your time and for your advocacy and honestly for
just being open to the message when it was presented to you. Because I know a lot of
people, they can watch those documentaries and stuff and just kind of find a reason to
turn away. So, just thank you for all that you do.
David: Oh man, thank you for what you do. You are an amazing information source, and
I appreciate all the hard work you do. Thank you.
Emily: Thank you.
I hope you enjoyed hearing David’s conversion story. He’s had quite a journey and is now
an animal activist and vegan educator, going into schools and sharing his story and the
healing power of plants, as well as the ethical importance of a vegan lifestyle. You can connect
with David on social media via the links below.
He’s just recently launched his brand new YouTube channel, so be sure to head over and
subscribe to get him started.
Now I’d love to hear what you thought about David’s story. Are you an athlete interested
in going vegan but unsure if you can sustain your strength? Did you already go vegan and
has it affected your performance? Let me know in the comments.
If you enjoyed this video, give it a big thumbs up and share it around to show what’s possible
on plants. If you’re new here, do hit that big red subscribe button down there for more
awesome vegan content every Monday, Wednesday, and some Fridays and not to miss out the on
the rest of the Vegan Athlete series. To help support Bite Size Vegan’s educational efforts,
please see the support links below or click on the Nugget Army icon or the link in the
sidebar. Now go live vegan, bust some myths, and I’ll see you soon.
I think I could make it to 300 pounds.
Just gotta go eat some beans...