The Lakers' Diet

Take your eating tips from the pros—basketball pros, that is—with the official nutrition program of the Los Angeles Lakers

- Vera Tweed

Regardless of which basketball team you root for—or whether you’re a fan of the sport at all—it’s hard not to admire Kobe Bryant’s legendary 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers. Even in his last game, the Black Mamba (Bryant’s self-ascribed nickname) set a record by scoring 60 points, more than double any other player’s final-game score in NBA history.

While dealing with multiple injuries during his last few years on the court, Bryant followed the team’s official diet: the Los Angeles Lakers PRO Nutrition Program, and his habit of drinking bone broth got a fair bit of media coverage. But there’s more to this wholesome eating plan than that.

“Your food choices change your genes,” says Catherine Shanahan, MD, who developed and directs the Lakers’ nutrition program and is the author of Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food. Some foods lead to genetic mutations that foster ill health and disease, she explains, while others protect and enhance our well-being and support a long, healthy life.

In Shanahan’s medical practice, this approach has helped many patients to improve mood, calm allergies, boost fertility and give birth to healthier children, eliminate cravings and the urge to snack, sharpen cognition and memory, build stronger bones and joints, rejuvenate skin, and achieve optimum health.

A board-certified family physician who is also trained in biochemistry and genetics, Shanahan studied the common threads of traditional diets around the globe, examined related science, and identified four pillars that bring out the best in our genes: fresh food, fermented and sprouted foods, meat cooked on the bone, and organ meats. Here are the basics:

FATS