SAS Recruits Go Plant-Based To Avoid Food Poisoning

New recruits joining the Special Air Service (SAS) are reportedly ditching meat to avoid contracting food poisoning, including the host of the hit Channel 4 show, SAS: Who Dares Wins.

Host and chief instructor Ant Middleton, who spent four years with the Special Boats Service (SBS), told The Mirror about his vegetarian diet.

‘Plenty of protein’

The 40-year-old said: “I start the day with fresh vegetable juice, eat plenty of protein, and avoid dairy. I went vegan for a year and have since stuck to a predominantly vegetarian lifestyle.”

The show puts celebrities and members of the public through a grueling two-week military training program mimicking conditions the SAS unit go through in real life.

Those who join the unit itself have told bosses they are avoiding meat, The Mirror has confirmed.

Converted meat-eater

Appearing on Good Morning Britain earlier this year, Middleton was asked if he’d consider going vegan and he replied: “I’m too much of a meat-eater. I love my meat, I love my protein. I’m a bit of a caveman.”

Why are recruits ditching meat?

But now, according to The Mirror, three in ten of those who join the unit are vegetarian or vegan – and do so because they’re less likely to get food poisoning which would interfere with their intense training.

‘Starved’

Recruits who have taken part in the intense TV show have revealed what their meals were really like.

In an interview with the Metro last year, Vicki Anstey said their meals were ‘really carb-heavy’ to load up on calories, adding that recruits were ‘starved for 48 hours’ and only relaxed over mealtimes in-between filming.

Another recruit said she lost more than a stone whilst taking part, and that food was ‘scarce’.