OPRAH WINFREY GOES VEGAN!!

33
by Michael Parrish DuDell May 21, 2008
Categories: Animals, Eats, Film/TV, People
Tags: , , , , , , , .

This is HUGE!!! This is huger than huge. This is huger than huger than huger than huger than HUGE!!! Oprah frigin’ Winfrey is joining team vegan!!!

The media queen broke the exciting news this week on her official blog. She writes: “How can you say you’re trying to spiritually evolve, without even a thought about what happens to the animals whose lives are sacrificed in the name of gluttony?”Yes Oprah. YES! YES! YES!

It makes sense that Oprah recognizes veganism as a form of enlightenment after so many of the world greatest thinkers, artists and spiritual leaders like Pythagoras, Alice Walker, Louisa May Alcott, Leonardo Da Vinci, Buddha, George Bernard Shaw and so many more have lived dedicated lives committed to vegetarianism.

This isn’t the first time Oprah has used her fame to help animals. In 1996 she was involved in a very dramatic lawsuit with the beef industry after ex-cattle farmer, now vegan activist, Howard Lyman, spoke on her show about the dangers of beef consumption.

After the first day of being vegan she wrote: “So this first day wasn’t hard at all. For breakfast, I had steel-cut oatmeal with fresh blueberries, strawberries, chopped walnuts and a splash of soy milk and some agave nectar. For lunch, chunky mushroom soup with wild rice and pecans. As a snack, a handful of roasted almonds. And for dinner, a baked potato drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper with a salad of shredded lettuce, cranberries, pine nuts and tiny orange slices with a vinegar and oil dressing.” Delicious!

Now granted as of right now Oprah plans on only doing this for 21 days as part of a cleanse, but I only planned on being vegan for a week and that was 7 years ago. And good news — so far it looks like Oprah has been pretty impressed. She revealed: “Wow, wow, wow! I never imagined meatless meals could be so satisfying. I had been focused on what I had to give up—sugar, gluten, alcohol, meat, chicken, fish, eggs, cheese. “What’s left?” I thought. Apparently a lot. I can honestly say every meal was a surprise and a delight, beginning with breakfast—strawberry rhubarb wheat-free crepes”

I’m so proud of Oprah for taking this risky yet important public stance and I hope these next 3 weeks really open her mind to all meat-free living has to offer. Tell us what you think Ecorazzi readers? Are you as pumped as I am that Oprah bats for team V-E-G-A-N?

thanks: vegworcester.com

  • JD

    “I only planned on being vegan for a week and that was 7 years ago.”

    After reading about the “dairy challenge” on notmilk.com, I decided to cut out dairy for 7 days, too. I was already vegetarian at the time. After that 7 days I too decided to keep with it after I saw how great I felt. Cheers to mucus-free living!

    If Oprah is doing this for 21 days I think that’s a great start toward settling into a routine! My hope has been that some of her fans will be inspired to follow along with this “cleanse.” She has the daily meals posted on her site, which is helpful. Anyway, I agree that once you feel the benefits it’s easy to stick with it. I’m interested to see if she does!

  • Brandi

    Awesome. I am not an Oprah lover or anything, but she seems like a good person and I know she holds tons of influence over the general American public. So if Oprah preaches the virtues of being vegan/vegetarian, than hopefully it will have an effect on people! I really need to make the jump to Vegan myself.. I’ve been a vegetarian 10+ years and dabbled with Veganism but I haven’t made a permanent leap.

  • http://glutenfreehippie.blogspot.com Lyra

    Wow! I found this article through StumbleUpon, and I’m amazed to hear that Oprah is taking such a large step. I’ve been a gluten-free vegan for about a year now, and it’s done wonders for my body, and I don’t feel bad about eating certain foods anymore.

    Hopefully this will be something that her fans will take to heart, and start adapting their diets as well.

    Blessings!

  • Kosh

    Awesome!! Its great realize the benefits of being vegetarian/vegan and an even greater achievement to actually be following it.

    I have been a vegetarian all my life, and certainly do not miss eating GREAT food. Vegetarian and Vegan foods do have a lot of options. And whats more important is that we do not need to kill animals to satiate our taste-buds.

    Great going Oprah!

  • http://veganica.com/thinkyhead Scott Lahteine

    We’ve had Howard Lyman on our show Vegan Radio a few times, and I’ve seen him speak on a few occasions, and he’s a really wonderful guy. In his case it took a spinal tumor to make him re-think the way he was farming and living his life.

    I don’t know exactly what’s motivating Oprah, but she’s setting a wonderful example and has the right sentiments in mind. Given the global food, environmental, and population crises, it’s just in order that influential figures should do what they can to promote ethical living.

    The industry built around Oprah has a huge carbon footprint, but if her trial veganism gets even a thousand people to think twice about their food choices this can only be a good thing.

  • http://ananimalfriendlylife.com Eric Prescott

    Alice Walker eats animals…

  • http://ananimalfriendlylife.com Eric Prescott

    I should clarify. According to an interview with Nicole Gregory, she eats fish and eggs.

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  • jozelle

    I hope she is doing this for the right reasons and not just another attempt to lose weight……just saying i love her like everyone else but this is a lifestyle choice for alot of people and shouldnt be seen as some fashion statement of the moment I hope she gains a lot of insight from it none the less and feels good about herself and more intune with the world around her whether she stays vegan or not best wishes big O !!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Jo

    I just hope she doesn’t drop veganism with as much fanfare as she’s taken it up. There’s nothing worse than an ex-vegan, who then looks upon practicing vegans as ‘stuck in that phase I went through’, or who see veganism as unsustainable because THEY quit. In Oprah’s case, it would be a very public recant, that’s all. But fingers crossed she sticks with it!

  • Dan

    Feed someone. Please don’t spend all
    your money on food people can not
    buy for the family.

    For breakfast, I had steel-cut oatmeal with fresh blueberries, strawberries, chopped walnuts and a splash of soy milk and some agave nectar. For lunch, chunky mushroom soup with wild rice and pecans. As a snack, a handful of roasted almonds. And for dinner, a baked potato drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper with a salad of shredded lettuce, cranberries, pine nuts and tiny orange slices with a vinegar and oil dressing.” Delicious!

  • http://nmwoodworks.com/gardening BillinDetroit

    It’s hard to take anyone in the media serious. Perhaps we would want to hold Oprah’s veganism (sorry, but 21 days does not a vegan make) up next to Tom Cruise’ religion. Not me. I get neither my diet nor my religion from celebrities.

    Good for Oprah … but it would sit better with me if she entered this quietly and just reported on the results at the end of the 21 days. This way, if she can’t go the distance, it’s public.

  • VeganGypsie

    If you’ve seen any of the new earth webcast, you will be encouraged that she isn’t taking this lightly. I never paid much attention to Oprah, but ever since her endorsement of Obama, I am feeling more and more warm and fuzzy toward her. This is the last straw, I’m an Oprah lover.

  • http://brainyblonde.com Erin

    wow what a beautiful thing. and how “right on” she is with the quote she said. i admit i’ve gone back and forth between vegan/vegetarian (only because i eat local raw cheese from local goat and some local goat’s milk) but it’s a bit of an inspiration to go back 100% vegan again.

    glad to see all the posts on this thread too ecorazzi. you came up numero UNO when i did a search on google news for oprah and vegan. way to go!!

    :) E

  • Alex

    Seriously, I couldn’t care less. What you eat is a purely personal question, I do not base my daily menu on the choice of a talk show host. How anyone can think that this is “huger than huge” is absolutely beyond me.

    Christina Ricci came out and said she was anorexic. You might want to give that a shot.

  • http://www.ecorazzi.com michael

    I’m psyched that Oprah is promoting the vegan lifestyle — but honestly, she has all of these private chefs preparing this amazing, delicious food. For the average person just starting out, I think the transition will be a “bit” tougher.

    I hope she at least admits a bit of that…

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  • http://www.croydonvegetarians.makessense.co.uk/news/1883.html National Vegetarian Week

    All this and more in National Vegetarian Week!!! We were in Odeon Leicester Square London for the Launch of a new film – Meat the Truth – awesome facts and figures about the effect of meat eating on the environment.

  • http://www.vegangirlnextdoor.wordpress.com Christine

    Go Oprah!

  • janine

    If I had a personal chef it would easy as vegan pie to eat without meat or dairy too.

  • parrish

    Go National Vegetarian Week!!!! How do we get a copy of that movie?

  • http://www.annietom.com Annie

    Awesome! A few of my friends recently took up a 30 day veggie challenge and six weeks later, they’re all still on it! It’s fabulous to see people at least give it a go and luckily when the trial period expires, most will realize how great they feel!

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  • Micaela

    “If I had a personal chef it would easy as vegan pie to eat without meat or dairy too.”

    I agree this makes veganism soooooooooo much easier- because society makes it hard to be a vegan, you go from being able to have a pizza out with your friends to being able to have almost NOooooTHING!!!!!!! When you are out that is, there is plenty to eat in the world. My point is that having a cheff makes it easier, but what that highlights is not that oprah has it easy, but that we should move towards setting up vegan delis and so on so that it is just as easy to go vegan as it is to have a pizza! That’s all, lets get productive people! I dream of having my own vegan deli franchise. I am vegan by the way, cheff or not- I’m my own cheff! :)

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  • http://veganbits.com Lane

    Here’s an update on this story: http://veganbits.com/is-oprah-still-vegan/

  • John

    Ok, this is absolutely stupid. You name a few great people who were on the vegan train and act as though it is a maricle. What about, oh, the rest of society who has accomplished great things and still eats meat? Typical of someone who just wants to espouse the beliefs they hold as being “the way to go”. Get serious, meat is something that humans eat and will continue to eat until the end of time.

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  • Timbo

    If Oprah keeps posting her meals, which are likely prepared by a chef and likely comparatively expensive, I think she could turn a lot of people off of veganism as something only “rich yuppies” can successfully pull off.

    Heh, she should have a broke college student like me on her blog to explain how I live off peanut-butter sandwiches and apples with peanut-butter smeared on them.

  • http://www.hot-topics-store.com S. Bair

    I have braved through the Master Cleanse 3 times now. I’m not going to lie, it can be a tough experience and put you face to face with personal challenges like what role does food play in your life? Food satisfied me on many levels other than just something in my stomach. I realized I ate for many reasons…boredom, anxiety, thirst, etc. The M.C. made me face these challenges which made me feel a lot freer in the end, because I no longer used food as a crutch but rather one of the multiple means to good health.
    There are a lot of pitfalls and details regarding this fast, and this author covers most of them. There is a lot of practical information. Highly recommended. Here’s to Better Health! Your body will thank you…

  • Nuno

    Louisa May Alcott was not a vegetarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vegetarians#cite_note-428). It was her father, Amos Bronson Alcott who was a vegan.
    Be careful about «Famous Vegetarians» lists on the internet. They are not very accurate.

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