BUFFALO, N.Y. — 2 On Your Side is celebrating Western New York with two nurses from Buffalo who are starring in a new Netflix series.
It is a four-part docuseries that follows four sets of twins as they take part in an experiment to see how different diets impact people who share the same DNA.
"You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment" on Netflix sets out to see how diet impacts people who share the same DNA.
The Stanford University study follows 22 sets of twins, who applied for the study, as one eats a vegan diet and the other eats an omnivore diet. Only four sets of twins are featured in the four-part series, including John and Jevon Whittington from Buffalo.
"It's just so crazy now," Jevon Whittington said.
They were nursing students at D'Youville during the experiment, which is now a published study. It's the first time identical twins were in a study like this.
"It was a perfect time, you know, finishing up nursing school, and we were about to move into the workforce and everything. Our fitness journey, we learned a lot throughout the study about that," John Whittington III said.
Jevon added: "Everything we had been doing up until that point, I just kind of felt like we were, we had been preparing for it. We're into fitness. Like our dad, he exposed us to that, and we were in nursing school and nursing students. It just all seemed to fit, right down to the birthright of being identical twins."
One of their goals was to gain muscle mass. They both had a tendency to under-eat. For eight weeks, they each followed their assigned diets and fitness routines and learned you can build muscle on a plant-based diet.
"We're incorporating more plant-based meats in general because I did like the ones that I tried during the study. We're eating less red meat today. Usually, we mainly consume chicken and tuna," John Whittington III said.
Jevon added: "For me, I think that consuming less red meat was the big takeaway. We've always eaten veggies, and fruits, and stuff. We've always just had a pretty diverse diet, but this just kind of showed me how, like, how good it feels, how beneficial it can be, so I definitely do eat less red meat."
Since the filming ended, John is now a nurse at ECMC and Jevon is a nurse at Roswell Park.
"Somebody came up to me at work and was like, do you have a twin brother? Are you guys on this Netflix series?" Jevon Whittington said.
John added: "A patient actually recognized me the other night at work, yeah, he asked the nurse who had him, is that the guy from the Netflix show? So it's been a lot of cool reaction."
And together, they make up the R&B/rap group JFW.
"Ten years ago, if you had asked me what would you be doing in 10 years, I couldn't have told you that I would be a nurse, and that I would be in this twin study, and that I would be making music with my twin. It's been a lot of cool stuff. It keeps me excited about not only the present moment, but my future, and what we could be moving into, the different kind of moments we'll have," Jevon said.
The twins also have a group chat with the other twins from the show and still keep in touch.