Mayor Emanuel Embraces Plant-Based Engine 2 Diet

By Anthony Todd in Food on Jan 22, 2013 5:40PM

"We need to become a nation of plant-strong, responsible eaters," said Rip Esselstyn, author of the Engine2Diet last week on WGN. He appeared alongside our own Mayor Emanuel to talk about healthy eating and his all-vegan diet.

Okay, so the Engine2Diet doesn't only include sweet potatoes (though, as Grubstreet pointed out, there seem to be a lot of them in this clip) but the Mayor is advocating for a plant-based, mostly vegan diet plan.

"Eating is king, exercise is queen; combine the two and you've got a health kingdom," explained Esselsyn. For the first two-thirds of the clip, we thought the mayor was just going to be a silent partner; perhaps he was going to get some of that Michael Bloomberg healthy mayor magic just by showing up. But when they moved to the sweet potato lasagna, he became an evangelist.

"You can have that same lasagna at half the calories, and from my own view as part of our wellness plan for the city ... we have to do a better job of how we eat and control our weight."

Given the mayor's personal workout habits, he may be in a better position to advocate for healthy eating than Bloomberg. Our triathlete mayor could totally take any mayor in the country. Push-up competition for charity, anyone?