I recently attended a close friend’s wedding and was happily inundated with positive testimonials around plant-based diet and lifestyle change. The groom’s childhood home was our hangout spot starting in middle school. His Mom was always whipping up something delicious, and while I accepted plenty, I would pass on any red meat per my own family’s code. On college breaks, our friends would reunite there and I now subtly kept to the vegetarian offerings. By graduation I was vegan, and not as subtle.
The would-be groom absorbed my arguments in our early 20’s and did his own homework. Affable, athletic, and highly rational, he became and has been mainly plant-based since 2018. Soon, his parents stopped buying meat and opted for nondairy milk. His Mom’s cholesterol improved such that her doctor stopped nagging her about starting a statin. And my friend found gratification in a lifestyle consistent with personal and planetary health.
His childhood neighbor was the first to approach me at the wedding: “Zach, I’ve been plant-based for 2 months. I lost 15 pounds and feel amazing.” This unexpected herbivore explained that his priorities shifted in anticipation of his first baby. He had been watching the groom for years, but fatherhood was the straw that spared the camel’s back.
At the same reception, I received a bro shake from someone vaguely familiar. He had been much heavier a couple years ago when we met, and I ended up counseling him over the phone for debilitating heartburn, acid reflux and globus sensation in his throat. He became plant-based, minimized alcohol, and said that his recent upper endoscopy was clean—whereas the prior study had shown esophagitis. A hoot on the dance floor, he looked fit and free.
If that weren’t enough, I got wind that the father of the bride wanted to chat. For the past 18 months, he had kept to a “Zach-approved” diet without ever having met the approver. While his wife always ate conscientiously, Mr. K indulged in standard fare and suffered a heart attack requiring two stents in 2024. With his wife and the groom’s conviction around food as medicine, he became mostly and then strictly whole-food plant-based. He lost over 40 pounds and weaned the initial laundry list of cardiac drugs down to a baby aspirin and a moderate-intensity statin. I imagine watching your daughter get married takes on even greater significance after surviving a heart attack. He had become steadfast in recovery from animal consumption, with every intention of enjoying retirement and perhaps becoming a grandfather.
In a culture seemingly resigned to nutritional self destruction, I was encouraged to hear such stories. Even more profound is the realization that we can influence people we may never meet. Each of us holds the weight to set off a ripple.
herbivores.life 