It used to be the Olympics was all about amateur athletic competition between nations. Those days are long gone. Today, we have professional athletes competing against other professional athletes. Gone are the days of amateurs in the Olympics. I don’t mind the shift to professionals as much as I mind the increasing political agenda of many nations. The Paris Olympics took politics and liberal political correctness to a whole new level – as one would expect from a liberal nation like France. The bizarre opening ceremony with its sacra religious depiction of The Last Supper even drew a rebuke from the liberal Pope Francis.

But today I’m writing about the controversy that received less attention – the French attempt to force the athletes to eat politically correct food! It’s no secret that Europe in general and the French in particular are climate change alarmists. But it was unexpected they would try to force athletes from all over the world to conform to their ideas about a “climate friendly diet.”

Dr. Charles Cornish-Dale, writing for The Epoch Times, tells us the French made a commitment that 30% of the food offered to the athletes should be vegetarian “to reduce the Games carbon footprint.” Naturally, the athletes revolted. Dissatisfied with the choices in the canteen, teams such as the Australians started flying in their own food instead. Teams complained, and to stave off a potentially damaging revolt, reports suggest that the organizers brought in 700 kilograms (about 1,543 pounds) of eggs and at least a metric ton of meat to replace “fake meat meals and non-dairy options.”

Dr. Cornish-Dale says, “Having to bring in extra meat and eggs was an embarrassment for the organizers, of course, but it was just as disappointing for advocates of plant-based diets more generally, who were hoping for a stunning vindication of their own dietary choices. The first plant-based Olympics: See, you really can break world records without eating meat, eggs, or dairy! Paris was intended to be the definitive test of a claim that’s made regularly now on behalf of plant-based diets, including in the 2018 documentary “The Game Changers,” which surprisingly was co-produced by a famous bodybuilder, a man who built his legendary physique with precisely the kind of foods we’re now being told we must abandon: superhuman quantities of steak, chicken, eggs, raw milk, and cream.”

Medical school taught me that a purely vegetarian diet cannot provide all the nutrients required for a healthy metabolism. Olympic athletes, perhaps the most health-conscious beings on earth, understood this and they revolted. They were only interested in peak performance at the games, not “saving the planet.”

Dr. Cornish-Dale goes on to say, “The Olympic athletes, by voting with their plates, reminded us of what we already know—or should know: A vegetarian, and especially a vegan diet, is maladaptive. Plant foods are not the foods we should be reaching for when we want to perform at the highest level. In fact, a diet built solely on plant foods will not make us healthy even in our day-to-day lives. Far from it.”

This misguided belief that the planet can be saved by altering our food sources has gotten out of hand. Some are calling for the abandonment of animal proteins in favor of laboratory-grown meat. In response, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis banned lab-grown meat in the state and producing or selling lab-grown meat is now punishable with a fine and up to 60 days in prison. DeSantis said his aim was to protect Florida’s “vibrant agricultural industry against acts of man, against an ideological agenda that wants to finger agriculture as the problem, that views things like raising cattle as destroying our climate.”

The French may have had good intentions, but foisting their ideas about climate change on a population of world-class athletes only reinforced the beliefs of many that climate change activists are unconnected to reality. However, this virtue signaling by the French may have one beneficial outcome – perhaps it will promote honest debate about what’s really going to impact climate change and what a really healthy diet is all about.