British adventurer Bear Grylls has come up with an unusual excuse for his decision to consume animal products, saying that a broccoli “can’t defend itself.”
During an appearance on BBC show Louis Theroux Interviews… last month, Grylls discussed his diet. He said that he eats “steak and liver with honey and a whole bunch of eggs.”
When pressed by Theroux if he really eats that every night, Grylls claimed to eat steak “twice a day.”
“But I don’t have a lot of vegetables,” he added. “I always think if you’re in nature, you’re a broccoli growing in the ground, how do you defend yourself? You haven’t got claws, you have all these things that don’t want you to eat it. Defence chemicals.”
Grylls is known for his wilderness survival television programs, and he has in the past sparked huge controversy for killing animals on his show The Island. It is highly unlikely, however, that he’s hunting and killing the animals he consumes each day – despite farmed animals being unable to “defend themselves.”
Bear Grylls and veganism
During the Theroux interview, Grylls also opened up about his decision to ditch veganism. He said: “I was also vegan for a long time. I wrote a book on how I thought it was great, but my health really tanked. And I certainly couldn’t do 25 pull-ups.”
The book that Grylls referred to was likely Fuel for Life, which was released in 2015. The book, which he co-wrote with a nutritionist, isn’t entirely vegan, and does include meat recipes.
Grylls’ bizarre claims came a few months after he publicly denounced plant-based eating in an interview with GQ magazine, implying that the diet nearly gave him kidney stones.
“The more research I’ve done, I’ve noticed raw vegetables are really not good for you,” he said at the time. “So I’ve started incorporating quality grass-fed steak and liver. My lunch is meat, eggs and dairy, a lot of butter, and fruit. I have liver probably every other day. I started to get strong again.”
