What Happened To The Vegan Movement? Rich & Simon Hill On The Rise & Fall Of Plant-Based Eating

**Rich Roll** (0:00)
Eight is what time I typically go to bed, for those of you wondering how I manage working out at 4 a.m., because eight hours of sleep is non-negotiable for me. As for ensuring I get eight quality hours, this is where eight sleep comes in, a smart cover that goes on your existing mattress and cools or heats each side of the bed from 55 to 110 degrees, so you can find your ideal sleep temperature and stay there all night. Why is this important?
What eight sleep does and does extremely well is ensure the optimal temperature conducive to optimal sleep, which it does by tracking your sleep and recovery automatically, no wearable required, and using that data to make adjustments over time to hone in on exactly the best temperature changes throughout the night to produce the deepest, most restorative sleep states. The result, up to 34 percent more deep sleep, individual results may vary, but for me, it's the difference between waking up foggy and actually feeling rested. Honestly, 8 Sleep just might be my favorite possession. I honestly can't imagine life without it. I want everyone to sleep as well as I do, because once you do, it really is utterly life-changing.
Use my code RICHROLL at 8sleep.com/richroll for up to $350 off the Pod 5 Ultra. That's 8sleep.com/richroll.
Good nutrition touches on basically everything, your energy, your mood, how you recover, how you show up. Most of us know roughly what to eat, what we're supposed to eat, and what we're supposed to avoid. The hard part is the day-to-day logistics, how it breaks down in the moment, the deciding, the planning, the shopping, the friction. That's the part we set out to solve with the Plant Power Meal Planner. It's a personalized plant-based planning program. Basically, when you dial up the website, you tell it about your tastes, your household, your allergies, your habits, the amount of time you realistically have to devote to all of this. And then it takes all of that, crunches it, and builds you a nutrient-dense plan in minutes with a one-click grocery list that integrates with delivery across the country. Every recipe is developed by dieticians with culinary training. There's nutrition info on each one if you like to track everything. And you get a real food coach in your corner.
Food has been at the center of my own transformation for a very long time now. And this is the tool I wish I'd had the whole way. For listeners of the show, all you special people, we're offering an exclusive $20 off, an annual subscription right now. To get it, go to meals.richroll.com, take your quick personalization quiz, and enter promo code RICHROLL20 at checkout.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:52)
Million of people have been switching to a plant-based lifestyle in recent years.

**Rich Roll** (2:56)
By 2020, the plant-based movement had hit peak popularity.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:00)
An exploding movement of elite athletes are utilizing vegan diets to heal injuries, speed recovery times and enhance their performance.

**Rich Roll** (3:07)
This plant-based trend is real, it's here, there's real serious demand.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:11)
Beyond Meat, the best-performing IPO so far this year.

**Rich Roll** (3:14)
The message was clear, this was so of the mainstream that suddenly being vegan was cool. But then, enthusiasm began to wane and the movement basically collapsed.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:27)
Beyond stock plummeted more than 99%.

**Rich Roll** (3:32)
So, what the fuck happened? Well, today we're gonna talk about it. My name is Rich Roll, I'm a podcaster, I'm an author.
I'm also an ultra endurance athlete and I've been plant-based for the better part of 20 years.

**Simon Hill** (3:46)
My name is Simon Hill, I have a master's in nutrition science. I'm also a podcaster and I'm the author of the book The Proof is in the Plant.

**Rich Roll** (3:55)
So, the purpose of this episode is essentially to understand what happened, how we got here, where we go from here and do an honest autopsy on all the things that contributed to the faltering of this movement. So, I'm not sure where to begin. Maybe you have an overarching theory on this, Simon.

**Simon Hill** (4:16)
I think like most things, there's a multitude of factors. The cultural waters that we're swimming in today feel very different to 2020

**Rich Roll** (4:23)
Sure.

**Simon Hill** (4:25)
And I guess the first thing that I would say from a nutrition science perspective is, I don't think the evidence or the science has shifted, but culture certainly has. And I agree with you, the vibe, especially in the media and online, has changed a lot with regards to how we think about a vegan diet, what being vegan means or a plant-based diet. And certainly a lot of energy has shifted towards more animal-based carnivore style diets. I think one of the things that's really hurt the message to eat more plants are stories like Beyond Meat, where there was enormous hype and deep investment into a category of foods, which I think if we're doing an honest audit, we can say to date have failed to live up to the hype. And that category of foods, I think in 2020, we knew that in order for it to compete with meat, it needed to compete on taste and price.