Vegan diet and Kyrie Irving

(Originally posted on Thursday, 5 December 2019)

Today I've read something that struck me like a lightning. It was the very first comment to this article:
https://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/256357/Kyrie-Irving-Could-Be-Out-Several-More-Weeks-With-Shoulder-Injury

The comment was posted by somebody nicknamed „Chi Dynasty12” and it was exactly this: „Seems like Kyrie is hurt all the time. Maybe he needs some more protein in that vegan diet..”.

VEGAN DIET! I had forgotten that Kyrie Irving was on vegan diet, but it's not what got me so shocked. Originally, when I learned that Kyrie Irving had switched to vegan diet (around 2 years ago) I was thinking like: „It's impossible for a professional athlete to maintain healthy body without eating meat or at least proteins coming from animals. I wonder how long it would take for him to switch back from this diet.” I have read somewhere that there are some amino acids (structural units that make up proteins) that can be found only in animals, so we HAVE to eat meat to stay perfectly healthy. The comment above is exaclty what I have been thinking myself.

However, the case of Kyrie Irving reminds me of something else. Some time ago (can't remember exactly when) I read that some scientists had made an experiment on meat-eating animals and stopped giving them meat at all. They started giving them plants that where supposed to provide enough proteins and vitamins, but after some time the animals started to behave strangely. After some more time the animals started to behave as if they were getting crazy. Then the scientists started giving meat to the animals again and the animals very quickly got back to normal behaviour. I wonder if the reported strange behaviour of Kyrie Irving is the result of his vegan diet. There are many articles about it and Kyrie Irving himself admitted that „It's Okay To Have Mood Swings”.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2860293-report-kyrie-irvings-mood-swings-are-unspoken-concern-make-nets-queasy

https://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/255985/Kyrie-Irving-Its-Okay-To-Have-Mood-Swings-My-Teammates-Know-Who-I-Am

https://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/256291/Celtics-Source-Describes-Night-And-Day-Difference-In-Atmosphere-From-Last-Season


Here is something about mood disturbances:

https://blog.usejournal.com/why-i-stopped-eating-meat-for-ten-years-then-started-again-95f4a4a6500e