From espn.com
Spend 10 minutes talking to Pat Neshek, and it becomes obvious he does things his own way and doesn’t care much about what other people think. The Minnesota Twins reliever wields the most unorthodox pitching style in the game. He’ll sometimes ask the bat boy to to get autographs for him from the other team, even from a player he just struck out. Though many other professional athletes have blogs, it’s safe to say his is the only one that prominently features a picture of a pink “My Little Pony” backpack.
So when Neshek decided in January to cut meat out of his diet forever and risk incurring ridicule from teammates and fans — even his manager — it didn’t come as a huge surprise. What was surprising was his reason for changing his diet.
“I read a lot of books about juicing,” Neshek said.
Wait, what?!?
“Yeah, the good juicing!” he quickly explained. “I used to joke about juicing, but it got to the point where people would look at me weird.”
An unheralded prospect who pitched at Butler University, Neshek spent four years in the minor leagues, improving at each stop. When he finally cracked the Twins’ roster in 2006, he immediately excelled, using his funky delivery and difficult-to-hit repertoire to mow down hitters. Thrust into a set-up role ahead of closer Joe Nathan last season, he again put up big numbers, ranking as one of the best strikeout arms in the majors.
Like Gonzalez, Neshek was succeeding at his craft, which would make a major change seem like an iffy idea. But after reading a series of books by The Juice Master (also known as U.K. health and nutrition mogul Jason Vale), Neshek began questioning his own nutritional habits. After that came more books. They included scientific tomes such as “The China Study” and disturbing exposés such as “Slaughterhouse.” Before reading those heavier books, Neshek’s wife, who was already a vegetarian, had gobbled up “Skinny Bitch,” a slickly packaged book on vegan diets that also propelled Fielder and his wife to give up meat.
Pat Neshek’s first season on a vegan diet was derailed by injury. Neshek says his sensibilities already leaned in that direction. Eating meat, he felt, wasn’t doing anything for him. As a kid, his dad would often make fresh-squeezed juice for the family, having been swayed by the infomercials of Jay “The Juiceman” Kordich. Living in Florida in 2004, Neshek took advantage of the orange and grapefruit trees in his backyard, making juice for himself both at home and on the road with his portable juicer. Soon he added apples, carrots, spinach and other items to the mix to blend in other nutrients.
“It was at that point when I started noticing how my body reacted to better things going into me,” he said.
Neshek’s diet changed little by little from that point. First, he tried to buy only organic foods. Like Gonzalez, he worried about the cost of shopping for high-end produce and foods, especially at his then-minor league salary.
“To be honest, I’m about as cheap as they come,” Neshek noted. “And I was this way before being a ballplayer! But it’s pretty easy and pretty cheap if you know how to cook. I guess the message in the end is that what you pay for is what you get. If you pay for something with no nutritional value, you are going to feel like garbage.”
His next concern was whether his meals would taste bad.
“But I was wrong,” he said. “The meals were more tasty, so I guess we just kept going.”
Next to go were milk and other dairy products, except cheese. Neshek was in the major leagues by that point, and he phased out red meat. But his decisions didn’t come easily. Neshek had wondered how he’d get the kind of protein, iron, Omega-3 acids and other key nutrients he’d need to survive the long slog of a 162-game season — let alone excel at his sport.
By substituting items such as brown rice and beans, tofu spiced to taste like different meat dishes, and flaxseed oil and various legumes, he found that his body held up even better than expected. Though Neshek admits he’s hardly a demon in the weight room, he has put on seven pounds of lean muscle since switching to his now-vegan diet and a refined workout program last offseason.
He started off this year again by averaging more than a strikeout per inning through 15 games before a torn ulnar collateral ligament knocked him out for the season. Tommy John surgery has an increasingly high success rate for major league pitchers, and Neshek’s optimism won’t hurt as he tries to make his way back in 2009.
That doesn’t mean he should expect to completely avoid ribbing from others in the dugout, though. Neshek says he has gotten some questions from teammates wondering why he went vegan. Most of them have respected his decision, with a few, including fellow pitchers Scott Baker and Dennys Reyes, asking questions in an effort to learn more. Manager Ron Gardenhire, however, is another story.
“At first he liked to kid me about what I was eating,” Neshek said. “One day, he walked over to the food stand in spring training, grabbed a hot dog and started [saying] something like, ‘Mmmm, meat … Don’t you just love meat? … mmmm …’ I looked at him and smiled and said, ‘Meat? I don’t think that hot dog contains much meat, if any.’ He laughed. He’s been the toughest on me, in a good way.”
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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under Famous/Athlete Vegetarians. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Hi Angie!
I loved this article and your blog. My family is completely vegetarian and my grown kids have been vegetarian since birth. I have two websites, http://www.21stCenturyVegetarians.com and http://www.TheVegetarianAthlete.com, and have also written a vegetarian cookbook. I like the information on your blog and would like to list you on my “Links” page of my blog and my sites. Please let me know if this is OK – I would love for my readers to know about you!
Thanks!
Martha Theus
http://www.21stCenturyVegetarians.com
http://www.TheVegetarianAthlete.com
Martha, of course I’d love to be linked from your site! Both of your sites are fantastic – there is so much information there. I will link to you as well!