New York Knicks center DeAndre Jordan joins Houston Rockets guard Chris Paul and Boston Celtics All-Star guard Kyrie Irving as the latest NBA player to invest in Beyond Meat, a plant-based substitute for meat, according to Forbes’ Shlomo Sprung.
Beyond Meat is a food and beverage company located in the greater Los Angeles area that has raised $122 million so far in investments, according to CrunchBase. Beyond Meat’s goal is to create everyday meat products like burgers and sausages directly from plants.
We believe there is a better way to feed the planet. Our mission is to create The Future of Protein® — delicious plant-based burgers, sausage, crumbles, strips, and more — made directly from plants. By shifting from animal, to plant-based meat, we can positively and significantly impact 4 growing issues attributed to livestock production and consumption: human health, climate change, natural resource depletion, and animal welfare.
When Jordan was asked about his investment, he said that the company is something he ‘believes in,’ and hopes others will ‘care about’ the company in the future.
“I believe in the product and it’s something that I really do care about,” Jordan said, “and hopefully it’ll be a company that other people care about in the future.”
In 2016, Jordan immersed himself into a healthier lifestyle by going vegetarian during the offseason. The next summer Jordan tried pescetarianism, a diet that includes seafood but no other animals. This season, Jordan has gone full vegan, when asked about his healthier lifestyle by CloseUp360’s Magdalena Munao, Jordan said he firmly believes that ‘whatever I put in my body, that’s what I’m going to produce.’
“For me, I care about my body, so whatever I put in it, I want it to be good to where I want to produce that,” he says. “I’m a true believer in whatever I put in my body, that’s what I’m going to produce.”
When asked whether he feels the difference from this season compared to previous ones, he realized red meat had ‘weighed him down.’
“It’s been great for me this season,” Jordan said. “Now that I look back at it, the red meat definitely weighed me down a little bit and it takes a long time to break down. Each person’s body is different, but for me I lost a lot of what I would say was bad weight.”
Kyrie Irving recently kicked off Beyond Meat’s new ‘GoBeyond’ campaign with a video that spotlights his career and his new diet.
