David Welch is Helping to Change the Way Plant Based Eating Looks

Today I’m joining a fellow Altra Red Teammate for what promises to be an interesting chat.

David Welch

On the running front, David Welch is an accomplished ultra runner that specializes his coaching practice to work with fellow plant based athletes.

When he’s not running, David is a scientist working with a nonprofit to advance plant-based meat and clean meat alternatives in an attempt to improve human, animal, and environmental health.

A Transformative Distance

David Welch, Running with One of His Kids

Having done the 100-mile distance 5 times, it is obvious how much David enjoy the challenge of the distance.

The challenge comes in many forms from the training, planning, and race day execution.

Rough patches will happen and moving forward without stopping or sitting will eventually pull him out of them.

These slumps are often the cause of not consuming enough calories during the race.

Individual nutrition needs vary from person to person, so trial and error must occur to find what works for each runner.

Mental training must not be overlooked and even experience doesn’t make David immune to the mental struggles that occur over 100 miles.

Two of his favorite ultras- Tahoe Trail 100 and Hell Gate 100k require drastically different strategies due to the race requirements.

There is no way to predict how one’s body will react physically and mentally with all the different variables that come with each individual race.

This Episode Is Sponsored By: DKMS

Plant-Based Athlete

David wasn’t always a vegan until about 6 years ago when he came across Scott Jurek’s book, “Eat & Run.”

This book inspired him to try plant-based eating and almost immediately began noticing positive results.

He felt better, had more energy, and recovered faster during training.

It didn’t take long for his wife and children to follow suit after experiencing the benefits both personal and far-reaching.

Along with the many benefits to one’s health by going vegan, the benefits to the planet are numerous and include:

• Helping to decrease climate change. Animal agriculture is attributed to 15% of all climate change.
• Positive changes to animal welfare by eating little to no meat.

Advances In Science

As a scientist working with the Good Food Institute, David is focused on advancing plant-based meat and clean meat alternatives.

“Clean” meat is a relatively new term that describes a meat product that is produced in a much more environmentally responsible way.

The process requires a small biopsy of cells to be taken from a land or water animal.

The cells can then proliferate indefinitely under optimum conditions creating a product that has the same taste and texture as the real thing.

About 25 companies are working on bringing the product to the public in the future.

This fairly simple process will have a huge positive impact on the environment including:

• Using less land than a typical farm with animals would use.
• No antibiotics would be needed, which would decrease antibiotic resistance.

More information can be found out about the future of food science by going to the Good Food Institute website.

A conference will be taking place on September 6th-7th in Berkeley, California and a live stream will be available to anyone interested.

David Welch and His Kids

Mentioned In This Episode:

• The Good Food Institute
• The Good Food Conference (Live Stream)
• Charm City Run
• Hellgate 100k
• Mountain Masochist Trail Run 50 Miler
• Tahoe Trail

Stay connected with David by checking out his Website and/or following him on Instagram and Twitter.

David Welch is an accomplished ultra runner and food scientist. #vegan #runchat #ultrachat Click To Tweet

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