Charity Morgan
Chef Charity Morgan sizzles onions over the stove in her home kitchen as the aroma of toasted fresh-made burger buns fills the air. She’s putting the final touches on lunch, which she’ll send off to 11 Tennessee Titans players at their training facility. Her assistants fill containers with barbecue beans and line to-go boats with checkered paper — those stand ready to hold cheeseburgers stacked with house-made pickles and extra dipping sauce on the side.
It’s Burger Day, a team favorite. And it’s a gourmet spread that makes regular tailgate food look flat-out puny. The only thing missing? Meat — or animal products of any kind, for that matter. The Beyond Meat-brand burger patties get their meat-like color from beet juice. The In-N-Out-style sauce and “bacon cheese” smothering mountains of tater tots? It’s all vegan.
Morgan cooks for the Titans every day that they’re at the training facility, and her vegan meals have garnered quite a following. At her peak, she fed 17 players on the team (a few have been traded or gone on injured reserve), making the Titans a particularly plant-heavy organization in the heart of the Fried Chicken Belt. But no need to worry about players not getting enough food. Lunches arrive in bags full of multiple containers and clamshells. Inside are a box of loaded tots (that could easily feed two people who don’t have pro-athlete-size appetites) along with a separate carton of beans and an individual serving of Oreo cheesecake — and that’s after the burgers, which each have multiple slices of vegan cheese between the double-stacked patties.
Well, double-stacked except for one — the one that goes to a particular 300-pound defensive tackle. “Jurrell Casey doesn’t like a double burger,” says Morgan, noting that the Pro Bowl veteran doesn’t like to waste food. “The rest of the guys? Double all day.”
Morgan, a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu, went vegan about two years ago when her husband, Titans linebacker Derrick Morgan, decided to give the lifestyle a go.
“I was just researching different ways to help with my [post-workout] recovery,” says Derrick, finishing up a PB&J before practice and his bigger, more official lunch. “I found a nutritionist who helped me with the transition” to vegan, he adds.
Sure enough, he says he’s not getting as sore from the strenuous activity and workouts. “The inflammation in my body is a lot lower.”
Not long after Derrick went vegan, Charity, who had often cooked for her husband anyway, decided she’d try it too. Then word started to spread to teammates, and other guys jumped on the vegan meal train.
“I actually was the guy in the locker room that was making fun of all the vegans — at first,” says linebacker Wesley Woodyard. “ ‘Oh you guys are freakin’ soft.’ Just talking crap. ‘How you gonna be a football player and not eat any meat?’ That was me for the first four weeks or so when they were doing it.”
Then he took a closer look at their lunch.
“ ‘Dang, those meals look really good,’ ” Woodyard recalls thinking. “ ‘Maybe I should try one.’ Once I started trying it and listening to Derrick give his testimony and why he chose to be vegan, I watched [2017 documentary] What the Health, and I was really shook up about that. And I don’t think I’m ready to make that transition — to go back to meat.”
While the Morgans stick with a 100 percent plant-based diet, others on the team have varying degrees of devotion.
“I can definitely say my first year of doing vegan, I was truly vegan,” Woodyard says. “I didn’t eat any meats, any cheese. Now I’ve kind of adopted a plant-based way of life. I still don’t eat any chicken, any meat, any pork, anything like that. Occasionally I’ll eat seafood. I live in Florida.”
But Woodyard also likes “keeping that fresh energy and fresh nutrients” for quicker recovery, less lethargy and less swelling, positive side effects he attributes to eating plant-based foods.
“It’s not as hard as you think, especially when the food is seasoned the right way,” he says. “And that’s the good thing about Charity. All her food tastes amazing. You really don’t even think about it.”
Charity says professional athletes continually look for an edge. It’s not just about getting into the NFL — it’s about staying there. As for her game, Charity says going vegan has made her a better and more interesting chef as she’s learned to adapt. Now she enjoys taking what she studied in culinary school and applying techniques for roux or béchamel with ingredients like almond milk.
“If you told me you were vegan 10 to 15 years ago, I felt sorry for you,” she says. “But not anymore.”
Beyond Meat burgerPhoto: Eric England
Noting her greatest hits with the team, “This is one of them,” she says of the burgers dressed with her house-made toppings and sauces. And unlike the veggie burgers of yore, Beyond Meat forgoes soy and gluten — the brand claims to offer a gram more protein than an average-sized beef burger. The guys also like “cheese” grits on Southern Day, as well as vegan gumbo and Charity’s takes on lasagna, enchiladas, stir-fries and fried rice. “I’m all about flavor layer,” she says.
Charity has a celebrity following outside the Titans roster too. Ed Sheeran’s tour manager, for example, reached out to her during the pop singer’s Nashville visit for a group meal. Her following has been a long time coming. Growing up in Sacramento, Calif. — she later lived in Los Angeles — she found a love for food early. Her mother liked bringing her family of six brothers and sisters together at the table, and Charity has been helping out since age 5.
These days, in her open, spacious kitchen, Charity has a few adages on the walls reflecting her philosophies. “Eat things that grow,” one reads. But another speaks to her level of confidence in the food she prepares — with maybe a pinch of tough love as well, fitting for a chef feeding a football team.
“Today’s menu,” it reads. “Eat it or starve.”
