Mayor Eric Adams of New York City is praising a move by the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) to provide $44 million (US) that “will support the training of 200,000 doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, dietitians, and other healthcare professionals” about the “evidence-based benefits of plant-based diets”.
According to the article, Adams “hasn’t been shy about his plant-based diet and how it helped him reverse his type-2 diabetes”. Trying to make positive change in people’s diet is nothing new for New York City - “Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to ban sodas a decade ago to address the city’s obesity and diabetes rates”. But this will be the world’s largest healthcare practitioner training initiative of this kind.
Adams is endorsing this move because of health benefits but a change to a more plant-based diet is a great way to lower your personal greenhouse gas emissions and contribution to climate change.
It will be exciting to see what a difference this could make if the millions of people in New York City (about 8.8 million in 2020) changed their diet to be more plant-based, even if just by a meal or two per week.
Stay tuned!