Former Olympic swimmer Stephanie Rice says she’s ’98 per cent vegan’

Stephanie Rice has said she’s ’98 per cent vegan’, which allows her to ‘have a leather handbag or to eat a piece of birthday cake’.

Appearing on The Morning Show on Tuesday, the 32-year-old former Olympic swimmer spoke about her lifestyle choice.

She revealed she’s been partly vegan for almost eight years, after switching to the diet following her retirement from swimming in 2012.

But she admitted she allows for some flexibility, describing the vegan community as ‘pretty polarising’.

‘For me, 98 per cent allows me the freedom to have a leather handbag or to eat a piece of birthday cake at my brother’s birthday,’ she explained.

‘I don’t do that on a regular basis, but I didn’t want to be one of those people that gets caught out and then just gets put down for not doing something to an ultimate extreme.’

Stephanie claimed ‘it is more about a lifestyle’, and said she prefers to balance her diet with ‘exercising, wellness, eating healthy food’.

But she confessed her relaxed attitude to being vegan has often attracted the wrath of critics.  

‘I get a lot of crap about it online, but I don’t really care – it’s my choice and I’m happy with it,’ she added.

In an interview with body+soul in December 2016, Stephanie explained her vegan diet.

‘I don’t promote that I am a vegan and I don’t like to call myself one. Mainly because I would say I eat 99-98.5 per cent vegan, and that’s what makes me feel the best for my body and energy and my skin,’ she said at the time.

She added: ‘I feel like with social media… it would only take for me to promote that I am vegan and then someone see me eating a piece of fish or something, which I rarely would eat, to cause some type of controversy, it’s not worth it.’