Plant-based politician Eric Adams has officially declared his candidacy to be the next mayor of New York City.
Adams is currently the Borough President of Brooklyn and former captain of the NYPD.
He kicked off his mayoral campaign with a virtual speech held on Zoom, pledging to ‘reverse inequality and overcome the health and economic crisis’ caused by the pandemic.
‘We need action’
In a statement sent to Plant Based News, Adams said: “COVID may have made thousands of New Yorkers sick, but for far too many it was inequality and an unjust, indifferent, dysfunctional government that killed them.
“We need action and we need it now. The promise of New York has always been that any New Yorker can be who they were meant to be.
“When we unleash the potential of New Yorkers by allowing them to thrive, there is no pandemic, no recession, no division that we cannot overcome.”
Plant-based diet
Adams often uses his political power to advocate the plant-based lifestyle. He told PBN one of his greatest achievements was banning processed meat from NY public schools.
Recently, he announced the debut of his book Healthy at Last: A Plant-Based Approach to Preventing and Reversing Diabetes and Other Chronic Illnesses.
The politician’s own journey with vegan food started in 2016, when he woke up with severe vision loss one day in 2016.
As a result, he discovered he was one of the nearly five million Black people living with diabetes. And, his doctor said, he would have it for the rest of his life.
But Adams was ‘not ready to become a statistic’. Instead of opting for medication and shots of insulin, he decided to tackle his health issues with food.
“Within three months of adopting a plant-based diet, he lost 35 pounds. In addition, he lowered his cholesterol by 30 points, restored his vision. He also reversed his diabetes,” says a release about the book.
“Now he is on a mission to revolutionize the health. Not just the borough of Brooklyn, but of African Americans across the country.”