From Billie Eilish to Natalie Portman, These Stars Are Cooking Vegan This Holiday
Countless celebrities and public figures are taking to social media to inspire and encourage more people to try tasty plant-based food this holiday.
Lewis Hamilton. Credit: Facebook/Lewis Hamilton
With their huge numbers of followers on social media, celebrities and public figures have a huge platform to help spread awareness of the plight of animals and how we can all help by eating more plant-based foods.
Here are some of the stars who are using their platform for good this holiday season:
Billie Eilish
As one of the most famous musicians in the world right now, Billie regularly posts about the suffering of animals and how easy it is to go vegan to her over 70 million Instagram followers.
Last month, the singer and her family visited the vegan rescue center Farm Sanctuary where Eilish met animals saved from the slaughterhouse, including an adorable turkey.
Natalie Portman
The award-winning actor has been vegetarian since the age of 9, and went vegan back in 2011. She regularly uses her platform to help animals, and over lockdown this year she even launched her own vegan cooking show called Natalie’s Table, which she regularly posts to Instagram.
Discussing the show with TV host Jimmy Fallon, Portman said:
"I'm vegan, and a lot of people think we're eating alfalfa, so I like showing that there's really delicious, varied, easy things that you can do at home that your kids will eat that are plant-based. And I've been lucky enough to learn a lot of other people I admire a lot."
Joaquin Phoenix
In between winning Oscar’s and starring in blockbuster films, Phoenix is a dedicated activist who encourages a kinder world for animals.
Throughout the year, the Oscar-winning actor has regularly attended peaceful protests and vigils outside of slaughterhouses. And at this year’s Oscars award ceremony, he used his Best Actor acceptance speech as a chance to highlight the cruelty in the dairy industry. More recently, Phoenix wrote the foreword to Hidden, a book that collects the work of over thirty award-winning photojournalists working to document animal suffering around the world.
The Joker star says his passion for activism stems from a childhood realization of injustice. In a recent interview, Phoenix spoke of how he became vegan at just four years old after seeing fish struggle for their lives:
“Really it was seeing these fish being killed when I was on a boat as a kid. I guess to stun them they were throwing them against the side of the boat. I just had a profound strong reaction. It felt like a real injustice. [...] I think it made me distrustful, and angry, and frightened of humans, humanity. I just thought it was such a gross abuse of power in a way. I think that during that moment we knew that we were not going to eat meat anymore.”
Lewis Hamilton
Vegan advocate and six-time Formula One Champion Lewis Hamilton has become a huge voice for animals in the last few years. He often talks to his followers about how his plant-based diet has made him feel healthier and more energized than ever before, and regularly speaks out on behalf of animals.
He took lockdown as a chance to reflect on the plight of captive animals in zoos and circuses, posting to Instagram that “If you are home on lockdown, perhaps you can feel a little of what the animals in captivity go through every day, their entire lives stopped from them”.
Tabitha Brown
Chances are you’ve already seen a video or two from the amazing vegan chef Tabitha Brown, who has become a viral sensation thanks to her relatable, humorous, and uplifting videos on food, family, and lifestyle advice.
She has millions of followers and just one of her latest videos, a recipe for ‘carrot bacon’ - a bacon substitute made from just carrot peels - has over 17 million views on TikTok alone.
Here’s one of the many videos that has made her one of TikTok’s top 10 creators of 2020:
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If you’re looking for inspiration on how to eat more plant-based food, then check out our Vegan Guide.
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How to protect rhinos from poachers, learning about what owls know, and the campaign to stop the construction of the biggest ‘monkey farm’ in the US - these are just some of the topics covered in our most listened-to episodes of the year.