Making sacrifices for animals and your health is SO sexy.
1. Actor (Her) Joaquin Phoenix
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“There were five kids and we literally screamed at our parents and said, ‘We are never going to eat meat again.’ Because we were on a boat, and they were catching fish, and they were throwing fish against the side of the boat in order to kill them, they are flopping around, so these kids, there were five of us, no there were four of us, one of them was pregnant with my younger sister, and it was undeniable that it was brutal, barbaric and horrible for us, and so we said that. I remember my mum not being to answer and we said, ‘Why didn’t you tell us that’s where meat came from?’ And she didn’t know what to say. I feel like I have this memory of seeing her crying.”
2. Musician Andre 3000
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“I cook the hell out of some spaghetti. It’s a vegan spaghetti dish that I absolutely kill. It’s textured soi protein meat, your tomato paste, your tomato sauce, mushrooms, green peppers, garlic, a little cayenne pepper to add a little kick, my special spices. I make a hell of a great garlic bread as well – you get a French loaf, you put soy butter on it and garlic pieces. That’s it! Put a good salad with it with lots of big olives, some oil and vinegar dressing: you’re good! My son loves it. His friends love it.”
3. Triathlete Brendan Brazier
“I first became vegan for health reasons, which for me translates to performance gains. Soon after I stopped eating meat I realized that there were many more reasons other than just health to be vegan. Aside from the health, environmental and animal welfare concerns, I also began to dislike the way in witch society views meat consumption. The slick marketing and complete removal of any thought that the ground-up, plastic wrapped piece of meat bought in a supermarket was recently an animal walking around in a field, not too different from your dog. Society makes contributing to killing an animal completely acceptable and anonymous, others do all the messy work (breeding, raising, killing) all you as the consumer has to do is walk into a friendly, clean supermarket in the shopping mall and buy a piece of meat wrapped with a cartoon picture of a smiling cow on it.”
4. Actor (True Detective) Woody Harrelson
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“I used to eat burgers and steak, and I would just be knocked out afterward; I had to give it up. The first thing was dairy. I was about 24 years old and I had tons of acne and mucus. I met some random girl on a bus who told me to quit dairy and all those symptoms would go away three days later. By God she was right.”
5. Actor (Game of Thrones) Peter Dinklage
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“I decided to become a vegetarian when I was in my teens. At the time I was doing it because of my love for animals, but also for a girl. Of course. I have continued to stay with it out of my great respect for animals, though. Any form of animal abuse is pretty upsetting to me.”
6. Musician/Actor (Dallas Buyer’s Club) Jared Leto
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“I’m pretty healthy so I think that helps a lot. I’ve been that way for a long time. Twenty solid years of eating vegetarian/vegan and taking care of myself. That probably helps the preservation process.”
7. President Bill Cinton
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“I just decided that I was the high-risk person, and I didn’t want to fool with this anymore. And I wanted to live to be a grandfather. So I decided to pick the diet that I thought would maximize my chances of long-term survival.”
8. Musician Bryan Adams
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“The concept that you are not ingesting rotting flesh sort of sums it up for me.”
9. Actor/Director (Out Of The Furnace) Casey Affleck
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“When people ask me why I don’t eat meat or any other animal products, I say, ‘Because they are unhealthy and they are the product of a violent and inhumane industry.’”
10. Poet Benjamin Zephaniah
“Our thinking about non-human animals is very confused, and people who have chosen to live a cruelty-free plant-based lifestyle are baffled as to why other people have not made the connection. Many of us live with companion animals such as dogs, cats, and rabbits. We share our homes with them, consider them members of the family and we grieve when they die. Yet we kill and eat other animals who, if you really think about it, are no different from the ones we love.”
11. Musician (No Age) Dean Allen Spunt
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“As you get older, you figure out what you like to eat. Being vegan really makes you think about food more. When you eat the western american diet, you eat whatever you want, and when you go vegetarian, you minus meat, when you go vegan, you really open up the world of food. It’s way more fun to eat. You don’t just put something in your mouth, you wonder what you are doing for the planet, and try Thai food, African food, Indian food. Stuff you never would have tried.”
12. Actor (Star Trek: The Next Generation) Michael Dorn
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“I run into people all the time that say ‘I can’t do it,’ or ‘It’s too difficult,’ or ‘I really need meat.’ And I just say ‘Look, it’s really not difficult, it’s just different.’ You have to go into a shop a different way. You have to look at the packaging. You have to pay attention to what goes in it and be careful. That just takes a little more time, but it’s not hard.’”
13. Musician (No Doubt) Tony Kanal
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“I made the switch to being vegan this year. I wish I had done it sooner.”
14. Musician Ted Leo
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“After about ten years of being vegetarian for a whole host of reasons that people tend to make that choice, the driving force was that I couldn’t justify not being vegan. To a certain degree, once I’d made that decision to be a vegetarian and live with that for ten years, a lot of the less personal, more political/economic/animal rights reasons didn’t really justify not being vegan for me. Just seemed like too much of a half-step.”
15. Poet/Actor Saul Williams
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“Everyday, our species participates in the mass genocide of other species without care or concern or even questioning whether the violence that we ingest and condone plays any role in our apathetic support of the war machine we have become. How is it that we as human beings can represent both the highest and most developed and lowest and least concerned forms of intelligence of any living species? Are we simply glued to age-old barbaric traditions that cloud our senses and render us inhumane in our dependence on comfort foods and practices? Is our dependence on foreign oil the only thing we need to curb? What about not so foreign species?”
16. Musician Moby
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“My reason for becoming a vegetarian was simple: I loved (and love) animals and I don’t want to be involved in anything that leads to or contributes to their suffering. At first this led me to give up beef and chicken. Then fish (if you’ve ever spent time with fish you realize pretty quickly that they feel pain and are much happier not being hooked or speared or netted). Then I thought, “I don’t want to contribute to animal suffering. But the cows and chickens in commercial dairy and egg farms are pretty miserable, so why am I still eating milk and eggs?” So in 1987 I gave up all animal products and became a vegan. Simply so that I could eat and live in accordance with my beliefs that animals have their own lives, that they’re entitled to their own lives and that contributing to animal suffering is something that I don’t want to be a part of.”
17. Musician Jason Mraz
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“I’ve also been on a pretty strict plant-based diet for 4 months now – feeling stronger, fitter, healthier and more productive. I ride longer distances on my bike, can do more pull-ups than ever, and my brain seems to have a larger capacity for new projects, problem solving, songwriting, and fielding random questions. My health and strength make me a better performer and all that combined gives me more confidence to go out in the world and shine my light. It also makes me a lot better in bed. Just sayin’…”
18. Musician (Fugazi) Ian Mackaye
“Our society is centered around meat consumption, and our society fucking sucks.”
19. Actor/Comedian Russell Brand
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“You shouldn’t eat animals, it’s mean to them.”
20. Skateboarder Ed Templeton
“At least do it for yourself. I would rather spend money on food now than on doctor bills later. The health reasons are staggering! Do it also to take yourself out of the cycle of killing and abuse to living things. Show some compassion, and act on it.”
21. Musician (Maroon 5) Mickey Madden
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“I’m a really big lover of animals, and, at the risk of sounding like a total hippie, I do feel more connected to the world at large and to animals.”
22. Actor (The Avengers) Samuel L. Jackson
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“It’s a new vegan diet. I’m just trying to live forever.”
23. Actor (Spiderman) Tobey Maguire
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“It’s never really been that hard for me. I’ve never had any desire to eat meat. In fact, when I was a kid I would have a really difficult time eating meat at all.”
