Kevin Garnett Has Transcended the PB&J June 18, 2008

Posted by Marta at June 18, 2008 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 4 ) | TrackBack

So did y'all see the game last night? The one where my Boston Celtics took apart the Los Angeles Lakers like they were made out of Legos and won their first NBA title since 1986? If you did, you might have caught an interview where my man Kevin Garnett talked about how he transferred (he actually said "transcended", which was awesome) his tradition of eating a whole mess of PB&Js before every game over to his Celtic teammates when he was traded there in the off-season.

Professional athletes? Eating peanut butter & jelly sandwiches?

[Wait for it...]

WHERE DO THEY GET THEIR PROTEIN!?!?!?!?!?!?!?1/1/1

Themikelee / Get With The Program / Creative Commons
I found this fascinating. The reaction to the interview was pretty much: "Look at KG and his wholesome, nutritious pre-game snack. It's so wholesome! And nutritious!" But PB&J is as much of a vegetarian staple as the Boca burger—I think I ate them for lunch every day for my first 8 years as a vegan. So why do I feel like if KG had said "I eat a vegan meal before every big game," the reaction would have been... different? It's like, everyone is cool with eating healthy, but for some reason eating vegan has this whole different connotation for some people... even though it's exactly the same thing.

I read an article on ESPN.com yesterday (while I was, uh, totally working hard and not on the interwebs) where Prince Fielder, Tony Gonzalez, Mac Danzig, and a bunch of other vegetarian athletes were talking about how being vegetarian has affected their game. No surprises: Gonzalez talks about having more energy in the 4th quarter of games and being able to blow by tired, meat-eating defenders, and Danzig talks about recovering faster from workouts. You can't argue with results. I figure, if a vegetarian diet is good enough for some of the top athletes on the planet, it's good enough for anyone.

So, note to the Lakers: maybe some PB&J will help next time. Although grabbing a few offensive boards wouldn't hurt either. Just sayin'.

- Dan