The End Of Man food?
Steaks! Hot dogs! Fry-ups!
James Wilks grew up with the idea that “real men” eat meat.
“Red meat, especially,” says the 43-year-old former mixed martial artist, who has black belts in taekwondo, kickboxing and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Not so long ago, an old bodybuilder friend visited him in Orange County, California, where he lives. “I walked into a restaurant with him – he’s 6ft 5in (195cm) and 120kg, by the way – and we asked why ‘chick’n’ was spelled funnily on the menu. They explained that it wasn’t actually chicken: it was a substitute made from plants. We said, ‘What meat dishes do you have?’” But there weren’t any. Wilks and his friend had walked into a vegan restaurant.
“We looked at each other, stood up and walked out,” says Wilks, laughing. “I literally couldn’t conceive of eating a meal that didn’t contain some sort of animal product. I really thought, not just as an athlete, but as a man, that you had to have animal protein at every meal.”
These days, Wilks has retired from fighting due to injury – but he has become a black-belt man-food influencer to make up for it. In the Netflix documentary The Game Changers, co-produced by James Cameron, he pummels the idea that “real men” eat meat into a whimpering heap.
Wilks first became interested in plantbased eating in 2011, after he tore ligaments in his knees and could no
