Natalie Portman is a vegetarian – a vegan, to be precise – and she thinks you should be one too. At least, that’s the impression I get from her article at the Huffington Post. In fact, she really goes so far as to infer that those of us who eat animals or animal products are inhumane beasts.

Apparently, reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals transformed her from a vegetarian to being a full-fledged vegan activist:

I’ve always been shy about being critical of others’ choices because I hate when people do that to me. I’m often interrogated about being vegetarian (e.g., “What if you find out that carrots feel pain, too? Then what’ll you eat?”).

I’ve also been afraid to feel as if I know better than someone else — a historically dangerous stance (I’m often reminded that “Hitler was a vegetarian, too, you know”). But this book reminded me that some things are just wrong. Perhaps others disagree with me that animals have personalities, but the highly documented torture of animals is unacceptable, and the human cost Foer describes in his book, of which I was previously unaware, is universally compelling.

But she somehow managed to overcome those fears and tell you exactly why you should think the way she does. Well done, Natalie! (more…)

Natalie Portman in The Huffington Post:

“Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals changed me from a twenty-year vegetarian to a vegan activist. I’ve always been shy about being critical of others’ choices because I hate when people do that to me. I’m often interrogated about being vegetarian (e.g., “What if you find out that carrots feel pain, too? Then what’ll you eat?”).

“I’ve also been afraid to feel as if I know better than someone else — a historically dangerous stance (I’m often reminded that “Hitler was a vegetarian, too, you know”). But this book reminded me that some things are just wrong. Perhaps others disagree with me that animals have personalities, but the highly documented torture of animals is unacceptable, and the human cost Foer describes in his book, of which I was previously unaware, is universally compelling. (more…)

Alec Baldwin doesn’t see much of a moral difference between Michael Vick and anyone who isn’t a strict vegan:

[Vick] suffers an unfair disadvantage as compared to, say, the heads of a meatpacking plant or the directors of a medical research lab where animals are suffering the cruelest imaginable abuses behind walls and doors that remove them from our sight and, therefore, judgments. … Each day in this country, millions upon millions of animals are suffering lives of daily abuse in factory farming, but we turn away because that animal, unlike Vick’s dogs, ends up on a grill and then on our plates. … (more…)