Plant-Powered Playmaker

Kiwi professional footballer Katie Rood tells Adrian Hatwell about fueling her passion with a plant-powered diet and trying to make a difference for animals, people, and the environment when off the pitch.

From a childhood romping on picturesque Northland beaches to Europe’s world-class football stadiums, Katie Rood’s athletic journey has the hallmarks of a classic Cinderella story. Starting with what she calls a “classic kiwi upbringing” dabbling in rugby and hockey, Katie found her way to football at age eight. By 19 she was off to the top league in the UK and by 2023 she had her sights set on the World Cup.

Impressive as her odyssey is, it’s made all the more remarkable by the fact that Katie has been powering her sporting success with a vegan diet for almost 10 years. 

Big Leagues

Though the lure of Europe may have started early for Katie, having been introduced to football in her preadolescence by a friend from Liverpool, she was in no hurry to leave her happy Whangārei home, calling it “a wonderful place to grow up”. But when England’s Women’s Super League came knocking in 2012, the opportunity was too good to pass up.

Katie was excited to get her professional start in the highest league of English women’s football, only to find her earnest hopes dashed by the reality that things were not as “professional” as she had been led to believe.

“I experienced playing and training with some of the best players in the game, but the environment was challenging,” Katie recalls. “When I came home after that year, I worked hard to improve my game alongside a degree in business management at Massey University so that when the leagues were genuinely professional, I would be ready.”

Five years later she would put that readiness to the test, securing a contract with legendary Italian football club, Juventus. Despite winning the 2017 Italian League and qualified for the Champions League, Katie struggled to settle properly in Italy and soon moved to England where for six months she played for Bristol City against the likes of Manchester City, Arsenal, and Chelsea, before being put on loan to Lewes Football Club. In this community-owned club, nestled in the beautiful chalk cliffs of the Sussex Hills, Katie found her values were truly shared and celebrated.

“I would go to school assemblies in the area and tell students about the history of women’s football in the UK — it’s wild, you should look it up,” enthuses Katie. “I’d share my journey, including why I went vegan and my passion for the environment before letting them know about this incredible club just down the road from them.”

She loved her time in Lewes but when Covid hit, Katie found herself moving to England’s south coast to join Southampton Football Club, then on to Scotland and Edinburgh’s Heart of Midlothian Football Club. Just as the season was closing and she was due to return to Aotearoa for a pre-World Cup training camp, Katie suffered an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture, which has seen her return home to focus on regaining full strength, fitness, and form before once more taking on the world.

Vegan Goal

Katie made the decision to vegan in 2015, but she’s been an animal lover for as long as she can remember. Growing up with animals, Katie says she always felt there was something wrong about eating them but nobody else in her life seemed to have an issue with it. It was just accepted that if she wanted to nurture her athletic dreams, eating animals had to be part of the plan.

“Over time I got more and more desensitised to the fact that meat was animal flesh,” Katie says. “I would have to cook my own food and when it was raw it would disgust me but once cooked, I would chow down on it, no problem.”

When factory farm and slaughterhouse footage inevitably made it on to her social network feeds she would promptly scroll away, but eventually she decided ignoring things wasn’t the right approach. She made herself sit and watch the 2005 animal exploitation documentary Earthlings.   

“I cried for weeks and vowed that I didn’t care how sick or depleted I got, I couldn’t fund that violence anymore. This also coincided with me travelling around Aotearoa and seeing for myself the devastation to the whenua that industrial dairy caused.”

Of course she needn’t have worried about a vegan intake somehow leaving her nutritionally deficient. As an increasing number of athletes are discovering, a healthy vegan diet is not only compatible with a high-performance lifestyle, it comes with many performance-enhancing effects.    

“After two weeks away from animal products I felt two inches taller, the physical and mental/spiritual impacts were huge for me,” says Katie. 

“When my body started to recover quicker from workouts, I was able to push harder physically, and I felt better than I ever had. The opposite of what I was told I would feel!”

She also found the reaction from her community to be largely positives. Veganism in sport is seen as much less “extreme” than it once was thanks to the success of films like 2018’s The Game Changers, documenting how many world-renowned athletes are plant-powered.

“The hardest part has been travelling abroad in a team environment. Sometimes you hit the jackpot and the caterer takes a lot of pride in what they serve you. Other times you have to contend with cold legumes straight out of a can and a salad.”

As well as fuelling physical performance and allowing her to live a life that reflects her values towards animals and the environment, Katie has found embracing veganism helped open her up to a whole new arena of advocacy.

Athletic Advocacy

Having successfully questioned the prevailing ideas around sports nutrition and the need for animal protein, Katie began to wonder what other convenient fictions might have been sold to us. 

“It forced me to look deeper into the way the world operates and opened my eyes to the pain and suffering inflicted for financial gain.”

Having witnessed the degree to which industrial farming had impacted Aotearoa’s natural environment, she began to take a wider look at the way all sorts of extractive industries around the globe were despoiling the planet for profit and wrecking havoc with the climate as they went. Having achieved an international platform through personal achievement, Katie felt compelled to speak out about what she saw going on.

“Women’s football is a space within society that we have fought for, for generations,” she explains. “It means so much more than a game, to so many of us. Football gives us a way to speak directly to those in power.”

Summoning the bravery she’s shown when taking the pitch in high-profile international matches and channelling it into her advocacy, Katie has recently put one of the game’s biggest sponsors on notice. With respected news outlet the Guardian as her megaphone, she recently penned a passionate call for the Women’s Super League to ditch its lead sponsor, Barclays. 

The multinational bank is one of the biggest investors in fossil fuels globally, investing heavily in the very industries that have pushed the planet to the brink of ecological catastrophe. Along with the environmental devastation Katie outlines the magnitude of human suffering:  

“Women who can’t bathe their children in the rivers anymore because they’re toxic, poisoned by the chemicals flowing down rivers from mines or oil wells. Tribes who can’t feed their people anymore because the nature they have depended on for thousands of years is being destroyed all around them. 

“Funded by the companies we wear ‘proudly’ as sponsors of our game.”

While many professional athletes are unwilling to bite the corporate hand that feeds them, Katie feels the collective power football can be used as an effective force for change.  

“There’s definitely some discomfort in calling out these situations and organisations but I believe in the power of sport and in female athletes in particular to connect the dots and act in the best interests of the collective.”

Rehab and Resilience

A year ago, Katie landed awkwardly during a match and snapped her ACL, a ligament in the knee allowing the body to pivot and turn. Following surgery to have it repaired, she has embarked on the 9-12 month rehab program needed before returning to play. Unfortunately, just as she was returning to training she tore her meniscus, the cartilage padding between the bones in the knee. At the time of our interview it was unclear whether this injury would also require surgery. Despite these setbacks, the resilient footballer isn’t letting the situation hold her back. 

“Thankfully, I’ve got a great job here at Western Springs AFC [Association Football Club], looking after the Girls Academy and the teams here are keeping me on my toes and involved enough in the game to not be missing it too, too much!”

And while Katie enjoys coaching our lucky young footballers, she is also keen to connect with other local vegan athletes and continue speaking out for the animals, people, and  beautiful whenua of Aotearoa. 

Quick Five with Katie Rood

Favourite vegan dish to make?

Nachos

Favourite place to dine out?

BurgerFuel

Go-to snack?

Fruit or chips/bread and hummus

Most vegan-friendly place you’ve been?

Brighton, England

One thing you wish was vegan-ised?

Humanity

Aotearoa Vegan and Plant Based Living Magazine
This article was sourced from the Autumn  2024 edition of The Vegan Society magazine.
Order your own current copy in print or pdf or browse past editions.

Disclaimer
The articles we present in our magazine and blog have been written by many authors and are are not necessarily the views and policies of the Vegan Society.