THE SENATOR WHO STUMPS AGAINST SUGAR

U.S. senator Cory Booker went 61 days without eating added sugars and built a team around him who did the same.

-  MAYA RICHARD-CRAVEN

U.S.SENATOR CORY BOOKER, 53, isn't the sort of politician who is happy with the status quo. In 2021, he became the first vegan senator to serve on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, which is kind of a big deal when you consider that the committee keeps its eye on the state of factory farming. And last year, from the Fourth of July to Labor Day, Booker sent out a global challenge for people to join him in what he called Sugar Free Summer.

"I was thinking of it more as a personal journey and just seeing what it would be like to live without sugar," Booker says. That meant cutting out his regular go-to vegan desserts-brownies, cookie-dough ice cream, dark-chocolate peanut-butter cups-but also condiments, dressings, and certain bread products. He even stopped putting Stevia, a zero-calorie substitute sweetener, in his tea.

"The first few weeks of the challenge were a real struggle for me," Booker says. "I had intense cravings for sugar, especially after a meal or late at night, and had headaches throughout the first few days." And then there were the headaches of grocery shopping. (Yes, Booker shops for his own groceries.) Even in seemingly healthy products-yogurt, granola, trail mix, "natural" peanut butter-added sugars lurked.