Why you shouldn’t follow Tom Brady’s diet

NFL player avoids foods such as nightshades because they are not 'anti-inflammatory'

Why you shouldn’t follow Tom Brady’s diet (Getty Images)

Throughout his impressive career, Tom Brady has credited his unique diet and fitness plan for his success, which has seen him win seven Super Bowls despite playing against much-younger athletes.

The diet in question, which the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback wrote about in his 2017 book, The TB12 Method, includes a “mix of Eastern and Western philosophies”.

It also heavily relies on restrictive eating, with the NFL player following a mostly plant-based diet made up of 80 per cent fruits and vegetables and just 20 per cent lean meat or wild-caught fish.

According to the TB12 website, the reason is simple - “fruits and vegetables are high in nutrients, fibre, and enzymes,” with the blog post also noting that sticking to fresh produce means avoiding “many of the negative side-effects of ultra-processed foods”.

The diet also puts a lot of emphasis on “alkalising” foods, which allegedly decrease inflammation in the body, while the 43-year-old actively avoids nightshades, which includes vegetables such as tomatoes, mushrooms, white potatoes, eggplant and peppers because they are not “anti-inflammatory”.

According to Brady, avoiding inflammatory foods is important because, as a football player, he is already doing things that lead to inflammation in his body.

“Some younger players don’t give too much thought to nutrition. They think they can eat anything they want, and their bodies will burn off the damage. The problem is that by eating inflammatory foods, they’re eating things that create inflammation on top of the weight lifting they’ve done on top of the football game they just played on Sunday,” he explained. “That’s an inflammation response times three. As I said, if I know my body will experience inflammation every Sunday during the season, the last thing I want to do is stack on more inflammation on top of it - not if I want to feel great every time I take the field.”

However, studies have not found any evidence to back up these claims, with Medical News Today stating that “nightshades are nutritious, healthful foods and the idea that they cause inflammation is not supported by evidence”.

Previous studies have also found the opposite may be true, with one journal article publishing findings that linked anatabine, a naturally occurring alkaloid found in vegetables such as peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, and tobacco, with anti-inflammatory effects.

The study also found that the alkaloid could be useful for people who suffer from “musculoskeletal aches and pains”.

As for whether people should actually restrict nightshades from their diet, Dr Gilly Hendrie, a CSIRO nutrition and research scientist, told The Sydney Morning Herald: “Restricting vegetables, oh my God, we don’t even eat nearly enough.

“We can’t have any message that says ‘Further restrict them’, because it’s just another barrier for people.”

Experts have also denied other claims alleged in the athlete’s diet, such as that reducing the intake of acidic foods can neutralise the pH level in the body.

“It’s next to impossible - in fact, I can’t think of an instance - where people have been able to change their blood pH with diet,” Stuart Phillips, a professor in the department of kinesiology at McMaster University, previously told Vox. “So there’s zero foundation for the notion that alkaline and acid foods [are] able to do anything to your body.”

Overall, experts believe that Brady’s diet works for him, not because of reasons such as alkaline or pH-level lowering foods, but because he sticks to it.

“The one thing that works is consistency and adherence,” Mayo Clinic exercise researcher Michael Joyner told Vox.