On Celebs Who Go Vegan, But Not For the Animals

J-Lo and fur coat. Jennifer Lopez is the latest celebrity to convert to veganism for reasons that have nothing to do with animals. 

It seems like at least once a week, you hear about a celebrity who "goes vegan."

The latest convert to veganism is pop diva and actress Jennifer Lopez, a.k.a. J-Lo. J-Lo went vegan earlier this year, and she is now crediting the diet with leading to her abrupt 10-pound weight loss. She explained her reasoning recently to Access Hollywood:

I'll be honest with you guys, since I had the babies about six years ago, I had that really stubborn 8 to 10 pounds on me. People are used to seeing me be kind of thickish, but when I started eating [vegan], right away I dropped like 8 to 10 pounds. It was a real change, but more than that I felt better and people were like, 'Your energy's better,' ... everything's better.

In the Access Hollywood interview, there was one word J-Lo never mentioned: "animals." It's clear that Lopez did not embrace veganism for ethical reasons. She merely wanted to get rid of that 8 to 10 pounds she put on when she had babies. In fact, at one point in the same interview, J-Lo advises, "The truth is, even if you're 70-80 percent vegan, it's so much better having those vegetables, greens, plant-based stuff. It's going to change your health."

I know what you're thinking. "Huh? 70-80 percent vegan???" One cannot be 70-80 percent vegan, any more than one can be 70-80 percent kind, or 70-80 percent ethical, or 70-80 percent of anything that demands an entire lifestyle commitment. You either live that life or you don't.

What J-Lo probably should've said is "even if your diet is 70-80 percent plant-based." But I imagine these matters having to do with semantics are lost on the singer/actress. She is clearly not an ethical vegan. She is not doing it for the animals. In fact, J-Lo has been a target in the past of anti-fur protesters for constantly wearing fur coats.

I don't want to pick on J-Lo. Lots of celebrities have "gone vegan" for reasons that have nothing to do with animals. One of the recent big vegan crazes is the so-called "22-Day Vegan Diet." Such entertainers as power couple Jay Z and Beyonce have gone on it. Ashley (High School Musical) Tisdale has started on it.

Two years ago, actress Michelle Pfeiffer went vegan, after being inspired by a documentary about Bill Clinton's conversion to veganism. Al Gore also embraced veganism, citing concern over his health and "environmental ethics." (source) Singer Alanis Morissette claimed to be a vegan - then clarified that she was "80 percent vegan" - for health reasons. The liberal MSNBC commentator Al Sharpton told Oprah Winfrey that he went vegan and plunged from 305 pounds to 135 pounds (he actually looks too gaunt, in my opinion) as a result of an exercise regimen and a "sugar free vegan diet." (source)

Samuel L. Jackson

Samuel L. Jackson recently boasted of 40-pound weight loss from veganism (to his credit, Jackson also cited the film Forks Over Knives as an influence, and has mentioned cruelty to animals as a motivating factor in his decision).

With the exception of Jackson, all of these vegan celebs have something in common: Animals aren't really on their radars.

There are a fair number of vegan celebs who put animals front and center in their justifications for being vegan: Woody Harrelson, Natalie Portman, Joaquin Phoenix, Russell Brand, Casey Affleck, Olivia Wilde, Ellen DeGeneres, Emily Deschanel, Russell Simmons, James Cromwell, the list goes on. These celebrities have been especially laudable in their unwavering commitment to the animals.

But the question arises: Are celebrities who embrace veganism for reasons that have nothing to do with animals helping the cause?

I believe they are. Hear me out. Sure, they treat veganism as a "flavor of the month." It is also true they're misusing and abusing the word in a way that reduces it purely to a dietary term, rather than an ethical lifestyle (which it is). How does one be a 70 percent vegan? It's impossible! And yes, their lack of compassion, their refusal to even devote a single sentence to the suffering of sentient beings, is troubling.

However, on the flip side, at least the health-conscious vegan celebs who avoid the "a" word are choosing the right diet. Remember when the Atkins Diet was all the rage and people were eating meat from sunrise to sunset? Ew. That disturbing trend gave rise to the dreadful bacon-eating hipsters who are so abundant these days. You know the type? They have bacon on everything: sandwiches, deserts, salads, pasta - you name it, they top it with bacon. I won't go so far as to say, "There's no getting through to these people." I used to eat bacon. Obviously, someone got through to me.

But at least with someone starting a vegan diet for health reasons, even if they only plan to stick with it for 22 days, there is some hope that their commitment might become longer term (look at Al Gore, who only intended to become a vegan temporarily, and no anticipates that he'll be one for life).

Mark Bittman

And look at Mark Bittman, author of the VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 cookbook. Initially, Bittman wrote his cookbook to encourage healthier diets. He now constantly wrestles with issues of animal ethics, even if he himself hasn't fully taken the big plunge into permanent veganhood (is that a word?).

For good or ill, in our contemporary culture of celebrity, people pay close - one might even say obsessive - attention to celebs - right down to what they eat on a day-to-day basis. The "foodie" culture is huge in North America and other parts of the world right now. It is true that some high-profile advocates of a "vegan diet" have focused almost exclusively on its nutritional value instead of animals.

Yet all of this attention to veganism has actually helped legitimize it. It has moved veganism into the mainstream. Twenty years ago, veganism seemed extreme. Vegan options were hard to find in stores, even harder to locate on restaurant menus. All of that has changed over the course of the last decade. Veganism has made a great leap forward.

So what do we make of a fur coat wearing "vegan" like J-Lo? Hey, she's reaching a far bigger audience than I am with this little blog mine. She could be extolling the virtues of putting bacon on everything. She's not. Other people will try veganism because she's doing it. And maybe one of those people will open his or her eyes to the suffering of our fellow sentient beings. Hell, is it naive or foolish to expect that one convert might even be J-Lo herself?

Whoever it is that's awakened, that is one more person in the trenches with us. One more light has gone on. That's one more man or woman who understands that what happens to non-human animals actually matters a great deal to us, both as individuals and as an entire species.

Watching Omnivores Struggle

The slippery slope.

It's interesting to watch omnivores grappling with their food choices. I just finished reading an article in the Toronto Star defending meat eating. "Why Consuming Animals May Be the Right Thing to Do," said the headline.

Echoing a New York Times contest in March asking readers to defend meat consumption in 600 words or less (which, not surprisingly, the big food industry/factory farm shill Temple Grandin entered), the Star published a litany of familiar excuses justifying the act of killing animals and then devouring them.

Author and New Yorker contributor Adam Gopnik led the charge: "All animals die. The choice for a pig is not between painful death and perpetual life, but between one death and some other. If we ate only animals that died naturally, then could there be any rational objection to our eating them - to eating their flesh in celebration of their life rather than burying it to rot or merely burning it?"

Toronto butcher Stephen Alexander, a big supporter of buying local, "humanely" raised meat, is clearly wrestling with the ethics of meat eating when he tells the Star: "You're killing them to live, you're killing them because you enjoy meat and it's good for you. But at the end of the day, there is the cold, hard truth that you're killing animals to eat their meat.... You have to justify it to yourself and that's all there is to it."

"Ethics are an individual choice," reasoned Heather Travis, who handles public relations for Canada Beef Inc., which represents 83,000 farming families here in Canada. Travis said her organization "strongly advocates beef as part of a balanced diet," and warned that staying healthy on a meat-free diet "can be trickier if you eliminate animal protein sources from your diet."

The temptation is great to pick apart these arguments one by one, and most intelligent vegans would be able to dance circles around these people in a debate.

But to me the most interesting element of all of these defenses of meat eating is the extent to which omnivores feel the need these days to justify the act. Five years ago, when I was an omnivore, I never felt any need to defend my choices. I liked meat. I ate it. End of story.

Today, five years later, more and more people are either going vegan, or feeling the need to justify and explain their food choices. I run into thoughtful omnivores all the time who are really - really - struggling with consuming animal products. Increasingly, it's getting so only an over-the-top fruit loop like Ted Nugent gives absolutely no thought whatsoever to chowing down on the flesh of sentient beings.

Famous food journalist Mark Bittman.

For the rest of us, it's a different story. I personally think the New York Times' challenge - which triggered an avalanche of responses from across the country - was a useful exercise in getting omnivores to think about why they do what they do.

A decade ago, the renowned and widely respected New York Times food journalist Mark Bittman gave little or no thought to the animals he was cooking (by his own admission). But in recent years, Bittman has developed profound misgivings about eating animals. These days, he believes that "20 or at most 50 years from now, those of us still alive will express incredulity at the way we once treated animals destined to become food." (Source)

Gordon Ramsay and friend. 

Bittman is not alone. Not long ago, famous TV chef Gordon Ramsay watched a hidden camera video of the inside of a factory farm (in this case, a pig facility). Seeing the male pigs being castrated without any anesthesia, sows chewing nervously on bars, and pigs shrieking in horror during the last days of their short lives, Ramsay was visibly shaken - and disgusted - by what he witnessed. Of course, Ramsay didn't go vegan. But the treatment of animals, an issue that for the longest time was never on his radar, has entered into his consciousness.

Bittman has been much more aggressive in moving away from cooking animal products than Ramsay. In fact, Bittman gained fame for his Vegan Until 6 diet, spotlighted in his book Food Matters, that advocated going vegan before dinnertime for improved health. Yet what began for Bittman as a health issue keeps coming back to the more significant matter of animals and their suffering. He can't get away from the issue. These days, in fact, he keeps bringing it up. It haunts him, just as it haunts any thoughtful omnivore. And this trend is working its way into corporate America. Burger King made headlines in late April when the chain announced it will switch to cage-free eggs and pork by 2017. Other fast food restaurants are likely follow.

Pigs in a factory farm. Many omnivores are troubled
by what's happening in the food industry. 

We vegans tend to be somewhat dismissive toward omnivores who are struggling with their food choices. But it's impossible to overemphasize the importance of this development, because it's a very new one. And it's becoming more and more widespread. Recently, I went on a local radio station to talk about these very issues on a program about farming and agriculture.  I could see the host, himself an omnivore and advocate of what he called "humane" livestock farming, was also grappling with these same issues. He and I shared a sense of uneasiness with the growth of big, corporate factory farms. A lot of omnivores, having watched documentaries like Food Inc. and Forks Over Knives, are experiencing these same feelings. I believe Bittman is absolutely correct, that  "20 or at most 50 years from now, those of us still alive will express incredulity at the way we once treated animals destined to become food." This is not a Pollyannaish notion. It's a reflection of the changing reality of our times.

A growing number of omnivores are troubled by their actions, and the increasing defensiveness of some is an outgrowth of a moment in history when the animal rights movement is gaining traction around the world. For those of us who feel passionately about animals and their rights, this shift may seem too slow and way overdue in coming. But it is happening, little by little, and it offers a glimmer of hope.

Maybe Vegans Before 6 might also become... You guessed it: Vegans after 6!

The latest Vegan Diet Craze comes from famous New York foodie and highly respected food journalist Mark Bittman (see his website here), who is proposing a new diet: Vegan Before 6. (Bittman is pictured above.) The idea behind this diet - as you've probably guessed by now - is that everyday before 6 p.m. you go totally vegan. After 6, go wild. Then watch the pounds and inches come off fast.

Before going vegan and starting this Blog, I have to admit: I didn't think much about food. I just popped shit in my mouth all the time without thinking about it. Meat, potatoes, candies, cookies, Chinese food, Indian food, Italian food, cheese, crackers - you name it, I pretty much ate it. Now that I have become an uber-hardcore rigid vegan (who doesn't even eat things that say, "May contain traces of milk or egg" on the ingredients list), I know the ingredients of everything I put in my mouth. And I have become more aware of who's who on the North American - and global - food scene.

I applaud Bittman for coming up with his Vegan Before 6 regimen, even if it might not be veganism for all the right reasons. Bittman, as I said, is extremely respected. When he advises people to go vegan, even if it is only before 6, a whole lot of folks are going to do what he says, out of sheer reverence for the guy.

Here's a quote from a recent Washington Post article about Bittman:

Still largely an omnivore as he completed his vegetarian cookbook, Bittman says he didn't make the big change in his diet until he (a) saw statistics about the environmental impact of large-scale livestock production; and (b) recognized, as he turned 57, that he had high cholesterol, high blood sugar, sleep apnea, bad knees and 35 extra pounds. "My doctor said, 'I think you should become a vegan,' " Bittman says, referring to a diet that includes no animal products, "That's when I decided to try the 'vegan before 6' thing," he says. "It worked for me."

"Vegan before 6" entails eating a vegan diet every day until 6 p.m. After that, Bittman enjoys whatever he wants to eat in whatever portions suit him. "In three months, I lost 35 pounds," he says, adding that he gained five of those back. "My cholesterol went down and stayed down. My blood sugar went down and stayed down. My knees pretty much got better," and his sleep apnea vanished. "It solved everything."

Veganism has done the same thing for me. Without really dieting, I've lost 25 pounds since the fall of 2009. Veganism is a proven way to lose weight. And I actually love food now more than I ever did when I was an omnivore. Maybe that's because I'm far more mindful of what I eat now than I used to be. But the question remains: what about all of these people who are going vegan for personal reasons and not for the larger, more abstract issue of animal rights?

You may recall not so long ago, I blogged about so-called Hegans, who are middle-aged overweight guys (like I am) who decided to go vegan to lose weight and improve their health. These guys aren't moral vegans. They don't go vegan for higher principles. They go vegan to feel better and shed the pounds. Certainly, some animal rights activists would diss this course of action as problematic. I could hear good old Gary Francione - an author, scholar and animal rights activist who has had a huge influence on me - criticizing these Vegans-by-Convenience for their lack of awareness about the suffering of animals.

And he might have a point. Thank God for people like Francione for fighting the good fight all the time. But the truth is, if everybody went "Vegan Before 6" - as Bittman suggests - the slaughter of animals would plunge sharply. And once someone becomes a Vegan-by-Convenience, they will most likely discover the Vegans-by-Conscience community that is so widespread on the internet. And maybe - just maybe - there will be some hope of converting the Vegans-by-Convenience to the cause of animal rights. Certainly, they'll be an easier bunch to win over than the omnivores who just can't go a day without their steak or pork chops or chicken or whatever (fill in the blank).

So I like what Bittman is doing. I like the idea of "Vegan Before 6." If more people go this route, not only will fewer animals be slaughtered, but I believe there's also a distinct possibility that some adherents might go "Vegan Before 6 & Vegan After 6." Maybe "Vegan 24/7" is a better way of putting it. In the meantime, thanks to compromisers like Bittman, the idea of veganism is starting to seem less extreme, less radical, to people who might've dismissed it five years ago. As far as I'm concerned, this is a win-win for us vegans.