When I reviewed Eric Adams’ book “Healthy At Last,” I suggested it might be useful beyond its practical advice for adopting a vegan diet, as a glimpse of the man who was about to become New York City’s 110th mayor.
Those glimpses take on a different perspective with the news three years later that Adams has been indicted on five federal charges of fraud, bribery and illegal foreign campaign donations. Looking back at what he wrote prompts me to ask five question that provide possible foreshadowing — subtle and admittedly trivial — of the trouble that lay ahead.
- Was he even telling the truth about being a vegan?
Just sixteen months after his book was published, and a month after he took office, an article quoted staffers at the restaurants where he hung out that he usually dines on fish, and a few months later, an article entitled “Eric Adams After Dark: A Private Table and Tarnished Friends” recounts a waiter greeting him and asking if he will have his usual, the branzino.
Branzino, a type of fish, is not part of a vegan diet. In his book, Adams emphasizes strongly and at length the necessity of a vegan diet — not vegetarian, not pescatarian — for good health.
- Was he telling the truth about the effects of his diet?
Adams writes that he began a vegan diet after being diagnosed with diabetes. He gives the clear impression in the book that within two months of adapting such a diet, he had lost 35 pounds and reversed his diabetes. “When I returned to my original doctor, he looked at my new blood work and gasped….’It’s like you were never diabetic at all.’”
But the standard method for determining diabetes is an A1C test – which measures the presence of glucose over three months. It seems unlikely a complete reversal would be evident in tests after two months.
- How upfront is he about what he did and what he didn’t do in the book?
In his acknowledgements page, Adams thanks his “co-writers” Gene Stone and Nicholas Bromley. But elsewhere (nowhere in this book) both identify themselves as professional ghostwriters, which makes me wonder how much Adams actually contributed to the book – indeed, whether he actually even read it (See number 5.)
- Does he cross a line with people on the government payroll?
In his acknowledgement page, Adams thanks “my strategist and friend Rachel Atcheson” who “worked tirelessly alongside me at Borough Hall, and in her very limited free time, she worked tirelessly on this book.” This raised a tiny red flag for me even when I first read it, given the then-recent trouble ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo got into for using his tireless staff for his book.
- Is he oily?
In the book, Adams warns against using oil. There’s a section bluntly entitled “Skip the Oil.” Cooking oils are “unhealthy” and “wasteful,” including so-called “extra-virgin olive oil,” and “there are plenty of ways to cook without using it.” Yet most of the 50 or so recipes in the last chapter of the book include oil. They are not his recipes; they are from cookbook authors, chefs, doctors and celebrities (The recipe for black bean tacos by Paul McCartney lists as its first ingredient “1 tablespoon olive oil.”) But Adams (presumably) chose them.
