Dave Leduc
Canadian Dave Leduc is a former Lethwei (also known as Burmese boxing) fighter. He was the six-times world champion, holding the openweight Lethwei Golden Belt. He was undefeated under traditional rules which require a knock-out to win. In 2016, after defeating Tun Tun Min, recognised as the best fighter in the world, Leduc became the first non-Burmese to win the Lethwei Golden Belt title. Leduc retired from the hard-hitting sport in 2023, while still world champion.
Leduc became vegan in 2020, after watching Game Changers. On an Instagram post he said:
“My wife and I became fully vegan solely for health reasons in January 2020 shortly after watching the [Game Changers] movie, as I saw that it was possible to thrive as an elite athlete on a plant-based diet. However, we became even more concerned about the ethical aspects of the meat/dairy industry and now protecting animals is one of our life missions.
I really like what philosopher Leo Tolstoy once said: ‘As long as there will be slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.’ Which made me think Veganism is the new elevated human conscience, it’s the future. The first step to human bettering is being kind to weaker creatures. How can we be kind to each other if we can’t even be kind to innocent sentient animals? Humans are the strongest and smartest animals on earth, we should be protecting the weaker ones, not killing them, especially if we don’t need to.”
