Tobey Maguire Turned Natalie Portman Vegan. For Now.

by Michael dEstries March 6, 2008
Categories: Animals, Eats
Tags: natalie portman, tobey maguire.

In our ever-continuing, long-winded debate over Natalie Portman’s food philosophy, we’ve finally received word from the actress herself that she is in fact a vegan. She’s been one for about the past month. And Tobey Maguire is to blame.

With our article yesterday on the webslinger’s demands that no one enter his home with leather accessories of any kind, having Maguire be an ambassador of veganism (not be confused with Jerry Mcguire’s “Ambassador of Quan”) makes sense. As we mentioned earlier, Portman did not originally consider going vegan with food (she’s long been against buying clothing made with any animal products) because as she said, “It’s really hard for traveling, especially if you want to maintain your protein levels.” Which of course, several vegans in the comments took to task saying that it was entirely easy and possible. Here’s what Portman said in a recent interview with Marie Claire:

“She grabs an energy bar from the display basket and studies the contents of the label. She wonders if the energy bar contains milk. That’s Tobey’s fault. For the past ten days she’s gone from being vegetarian to vegan. ‘I was around Tobey Maguire in rehearsals [for upcoming film Brothers] and he’s vegan and I was, like, this is nice. I’m honest about caring about animals. You know, eggs and milk products, there’s a lot of animal discomfort in that, too. I don’t know if it’s a permanent thing.’

So, there you have it. Whether she’s vegan one day or vegetarian the next, I think we can agree that as an individual the world could use more people just like her. But seriously, what do you think?

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About Michael dEstries

Michael has been blogging since 2005 on issues such as sustainability, renewable energy, philanthropy, and healthy living. He regularly contributes to a slew of publications, as well as consulting with companies looking to make an impact using the web and social media. He lives in Ithaca, NY with his family on an apple farm.

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bnh

i sure hope that Tobey doesn’t dictate every actor he works with to become vegan!
http://www.myspace.com/xjaxinx Jaxin

I don’t want to pick any of the answers in that poll!

My answer is “She should pick VEGAN and stick with it!”

I love Natalie, I hope she sticks to it.
ChooChooCharlie

I agree with Jaxin.

Do these poll results indicate that there are many of the people that frequent this site are NOT vegan? How can you be environmentally-friendly and not be vegan?
ChooChooCharlie

Apologies for the typos
Andrea

bnh, where does is say that Tobey “dictated” to Natalie? She probably just asked him about it and he just answered her questions and she thought it made sense. There’s a difference between “dictating” and asking questions and having a conversation. I’ve noticed that once a person explains to somebody where factory-farmed eggs and dairy actually come from, most people are appalled. The cows are given loads of synthetic hormones and antibiotics so that they produce many times more milk than they naturally should, and that is not only cruel to them but unhealthy for us. The hormones given to cows have been linked with higher cancer rates. And eggs typically come from hens that have been kept in cages so small they can’t even spread their wings.
http://www.theveganbus.com veganicat

i hope she stays vegan, it goes well with her beauty and intelligence. and kudos to toby as well!
littlejohn

Dearies, even if egg laying hens and dairy cows had happy lives… well that is IMPOSSIBLE.

The dairy industry could not ethically exist without the beef industry. There would be too many males -think about it.

Same with eggs. So even if your eggs come from your mates pet hen, you’re still contributing, because that couldn’t have happened if the chicken industry didn’t exist.

Egg laying hens are slaughtered at 72 weeks anyway as after this age their eggs are less likely to be perfect.
Natasha

i sure hope that Tobey doesn’t dictate every actor he works with to become vegan!

Really? Because I hope he DOES. There is nothing wrong with promoting compassion.
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thunderkitten

Once you go vegan, you learn to stay vegan when you try to go back to your old ways.
Nani

I think this whole “vegan” issue is seriously taken out of control. Plants are living things, so why don’t you just starve yourself?? I mean, how dumb can you get and still breathe! You should tell an infant sucking on his mothers tit as a babe that it should stop because, good heavens, it’s PAINFUL!! They have to bite and knaw and all that junk, so why not ban breast feeding out of your life?? Hm?? It’s going to be “uncomfortable” regardless. Why NOT wear wool?? All they do is cut the coat of the sheep/lamb off and KNIT it into a sweater or make it into a 100% cotton shirt. They’re not KILLING the animal. Again, how dumb can you get and still breathe, honestly? This is stupid. Had it not been for Adam and Eve, we wouldn’t HAVE to eat animals and all that junk, but we do. They’re there to eat for a reason. There are KOSHER ways of killing an animal so they don’t suffer. Gosh, there’s so much stupidity in the world. I’m not saying that what I say should persuade anyone to not be vegetarian or vegan. I wouldn’t want to eat meat because of how they PROCESS it like dunking it in ammonia to kill the e-coli from the meat previously being in cow crap/whatever crap came with it. Watch Food Inc. You’ll see cruelty. If it were different with how they deal with it, then I wouldn’t be so scornful. Anyway.. Jeez, I’m worked up.