What does it mean to be vegan? It’s not just about eliminating meat from your diet. A vegan or plant-based diet excludes all animal products. That means no dairy, eggs, or even honey. The restrictions also include clothing. You most likely won’t see a vegan wearing leather or suede because those products are made from an animal.
A person may opt to choose a vegan lifestyle for purely ethical reasons. However, there is some medical evidence that a plant-based diet may improve a person’s overall health and decrease cancer risks and heart disease.
It may have been for health reasons, because they bonded with an animal, or maybe they just wanted to look better, but these famous people can recount the exact moment they became vegan.
As a struggling actor in his 20s, Woody Harrelson was living in New York City. While riding the bus one day, a girl told him the secret to getting rid of his acne:
I was on a bus and some girl sees me blowing my nose. I had acne all over my face, which I'd had for years and years. And she's like: "Hey, you're lactose intolerant. If you quit dairy, all these symptoms you got will be gone in three days." I was like 24. And I was like, No way. But three days later: gone.
Harrelson is a raw vegan. The True Detective actor also does not eat sugar or flour. Harrelson lives with his family on a working organic farm in Maui.
Bellamy Young has been a vegan since college. The Scandal actress contends that the change in diet helped with her cystic acne and energy level. Young used to have issues with digesting food before she switched over to a plant-based diet. Young ties the moment she went vegan to a chicken entree she was served in college. She explains:
It came to me in a very strange way. I was at college, it was sophomore year and I got the baked breast of chicken and they sort of plated it weird. As I lowered it down to my tray, it looked exactly like my mom’s little furry yippy dog when she’d roll over and want you to rub her tummy. That was it for me.
Jonathan Safran Foer's book, Eating Animals, had a huge impact on Natalie Portman. The actress not only went from vegetarian to vegan after reading the 2009 bestseller about the detriments of industry farming and animal abuse, but also helped to adapt the novel into a 2017 documentary of the same name. Portman served as co-producer and narrator on the project. She was pregnant with her son when she decided to remove dairy and eggs from her diet:
When I read the book, that was what made me become a vegan. I think until then, I had thought, "Oh, with eggs and dairy, you’re not [harming] animals. It’s just their natural byproducts." But when I started learning about the conditions - and the environmental effect of all these animals and the impact on humans of having large groups of sick animals together, it really made me want to change immediately.
The Academy Award-winning actress has also become a voice for the vegan lifestyle. She often publicly talks about both the health benefits and positive environmental impact the switch to a plant-based diet has on an individual and the rest of the world. Portman believes that it's now easier than ever to switch to a vegan diet:
The doc attempts to link serious health problems with consuming meat and dairy, and accuses the government of trying to cover up this link.I feel like there’s a lot more vegetarian and vegan places opening all the time. I mean, in LA, we’re spoiled - but even in New York. And places like Shake Shack have a vegetarian option now. It’s obviously something that consumers are demanding more. Things like the Impossible Burger and Kite Hill cheese and Van Leeuwen’s vegan ice cream, those things pop up and create really incredible alternatives. People don’t feel like they’re sacrificing anything. They can still have delicious food and not be harming the planet.
The Grammy Award-winning artist and father of four credits the vegan lifestyle with several personal health benefits. "I am loving it," Ne-Yo told Us Weekly. "I genuinely am. It’s been about two years. More energy, my face clears up, weight falls off. I lost, like, 30 pounds!"
What the Health claims government and big business are in bed together to keep people sick in the name of generating trillions of dollars in health care costs. The documentary's message made the singer-songwriter angry:
Initially, I watched the documentary What the Health, and to put it frankly, it pissed me off. It really did. I was like, let me get this straight: The person giving you the disease and the person fighting the disease are in bed together? To hell with y’all.
Ne-Yo added, "Out of spite, I went vegan because I was like, y’all don’t care."
Jason Mraz initially went vegan to help out his friend who was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and also went almost entirely raw. He admits to eating raw foods about 75% of the time, but will occasionally treat himself to soup or roasted vegetables.
The "I'm Yours" singer just wanted to make his friend's dietary transition easiser for him, but wound up loving the vegan lifestyle:
A guy in my band found out that he had type 2 diabetes and felt that the only way he could help himself was to go raw. I did it as a partner for him so it would be a little easier. In the meantime, I got hooked. It was so easy to make the world's most delicious salads. We had a raw food chef on the road with us for a month who turned us on to making our own hummus and cheeses and a bunch of alternatives to dairy, bread, and sugar. Once you kick sugar, you won't want it, because there are so many other sweet things to eat. Raw desserts? Forget about it!
Ellen Pompeo has played famed surgeon Dr. Meredith Grey on the ABC medical drama Grey's Anatomy since 2005. In 2018, it was her own doctor who inspired the actress to adopt a vegan diet in order to help prevent breast cancer. During a routine health check, Dr. Kristi Funk told Pompeo about her book Breasts: The Owner's Manual. The read inspired the actress to become vegan and to also turn her husband and three children onto a plant-based diet.
The dietary change turned out to be an easier transition than she originally expected. Pompeo explains:
It’s super fun. I don’t think it’s tricky at all - it’s actually easier because meat you have to cook it before it goes bad. Grains and lentils and rice and beans, everything’s in the pantry already. You just have to get vegetables, but vegetables stay good for a week - and I think we all feel better.
A Doctor Told will.i.am He Had High Blood Pressure And Cholesterol
Rapper will.i.am decided in late 2017 that it was time to drop all animal products from his diet. The Black Eyed Peas singer credits a trip to the doctor's office for his switch to a vegan diet. The musician said that he initially went to the doctor because he had a cough that would not go away. During the visit, the doctor told him that he had high cholesterol.
He knew that the life of a traveling musician contributed to his poor diet. After going vegan, the singer went from 210 pounds to 188 pounds. He credits his doctor with helping him and saving the lives of his friend and others:
I talk to my doctor all the time, he helped save my best friend’s life. Taboo in the Black Eyed Peas had testicular cancer which he fought and beat, he helped Lance Armstrong, and he helped keep Steve Jobs alive for as long as he could.
Comments
Post a Comment