“Making a plant-based diet more accessible and achievable will not only help reduce our shared healthcare costs, but help more people feel better in their daily lives.”

Former US president Bill Clinton has praised Mayor Eric Adams’ efforts to get New Yorkers to adopt a more plant-based diet.

Taking to Twitter, Clinton wrote: “Making a plant-based diet more accessible and achievable will not only help reduce our shared healthcare costs, but help more people feel better in their daily lives.

“I can speak from personal experience! Well done, @NYCMayor.”

Clinton, for his part is known to follow a plant-focused lifestyle.

According to an AARP article, the 42nd president of the United States described how changing his diet helped him improve his health, lose 20 pounds and get his heart disease under control.

“I was lucky I did not die of a heart attack,” he said in an interview with CNN.

Adams’ ‘perfectly imperfect plant-based diet   

Clinton’s comment comes at a time when Adams – a vocal advocate for the plant-based diet – has been mired in a controversy related to his dietary choices.

Adams, who is 61, has long maintained that veganism saved his life. His switch to a plant-based diet in 2016 helped him to combat issues such as blindness and pain brought on by type 2 diabetes.

However, recently Adams’ plant-based diet came under fire after news of the politician ordering fish at NYC restaurants during business meetings emerged.

In response, the Democrat – who has written a book promoting his plant-based lifestyle -admitted that he is “perfectly imperfect”, and occasionally eats fish.

“I aspire to be plant-based 100% of the time. I want to be a role model for people who are following or aspire to follow a plant-based diet, but, as I said, I am perfectly imperfect, and have occasionally eaten fish,” Adams said in a statement.

Plant-based initiatives for New Yorkers

Despite being called out for eating fish, the newly elected NYC mayor remains true to his commitment in helping New Yorkers improve their health with new plant-based initiatives.

Over his first few weeks in office, Adams rolled out “Vegan Fridays” in New York City public schools last week in response to the country’s healthcare crisis.

According to Adams, the program, which will see K-12 students eating plant-based meals one day a week, will help improve the health and “quality of life” of students in the city.

“In one voice, we talk about fighting childhood obesity, diabetes yet you go into a school building every day and you see the food that feeds our healthcare crisis,” Adams said in January.

“The children have been calling me and saying they want better food in schools, and I’m going to do the best I can to give them the options of a more healthier diet so we can stop feeding the crisis,” he added.

In another first-of-its-kind program, Adams announced the expansion of a lifestyle medicine program that aims to help people with lifestyle diseases reverse their symptoms through a plant-based diet.

The program was initially implemented at the NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue medical system.

And now the program will be extended to six additional sites across NYC’s boroughs and Vanderbilt.

“Today, New York City is again leading the way with the most comprehensive expansion of lifestyle medicine programming in the nation,” Adams said.

“This is personal to me—a plant-based lifestyle helped save my life, and I’m thrilled that New Yorkers in every zip code will have access to this critical programming. Together, we will stop feeding the health care crisis and ensure all New Yorkers can access the healthy lifestyle they deserve.”

• Read: Disney completes ‘mission’ to add plant-based items to every menu

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