Former President Bill Clinton is back and “more vegan” than ever, baby!

In a new interview with CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, President Clinton happily reports that he is now eating a completely vegan diet (no word on whether or not he’s made the additional lifestyle changes, but no complaints!). About a year ago, Clinton made headlines for talking about the “mostly vegan” diet he had recently committed to, noting that he still ate fish on a fairly regular basis. Fast forward to the present and it looks like he’s come around to the idea of omitting animal products and flesh of all kinds.

Following the dietary recommendations of Dr. Dean Ornish and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn Jr., whose decades-long research on diet and health indicate that a plant-based diet can prevent and, in some cases, actually reverse common ailments like cancer and heart disease, Clinton now even goes so far as to omit most oils from his diet as well!

Throughout his presidency (and most of his life before that), Clinton made no secret of his preference for fast food and meat-laden meals very high in fat, calories and cholesterol – not at all unlike the diet of today’s average American consumer. That’s why I find Clinton’s conversion to a vegan diet – and his enthusiasm for it – so noteworthy. It seems like he’s the perfect example of the fact that anyone can do this and that it isn’t the miserable existence so many people think it would be.

Clinton’s pre-vegan diet eventually led to heart disease, in particular, a quadruple-bypass and a follow-up angioplasty. My hope is that others will find motivation to make changes in the their diet based on President Clinton’s example, rather than having to go about it the hard way, as he did.