Vegetarian Celebrities Highlighted On World Vegetarian Day (PHOTOS)

Whether you're a hardcore vegan or a "weekday vegetarian," it's time to celebrate all things animal product-free during Vegetarian Awareness Month, which kicks off with World Vegetarian Day on October 1.

The North American Vegetarian Society sponsors the month to help inform people about the benefits of vegetarianism. Their site writes: "You will be helping to create a better world because vegetarian diets have proven health benefits, save animals’ lives and help to preserve the Earth."

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) writes vegetarianism can help save the planet by reducing human contribution to climate change. "Forests are being bulldozed to make more room for factory farms and feed crops to feed farmed animals, and this destruction causes soil erosion and contributes to species extinction and habitat loss. Raising animals for food also requires massive amounts of food and raw materials," the site says.

HuffPost's Lynne Peeples writes that a report this year "estimates that if each American cuts meat and cheese from their diet for one day a week it would be equivalent to taking 7.6 million cars off the road."

Not to mention the animal cruelty which comes with factory farming. PETA writes: "On today's factory farms, animals are crammed by the thousands into filthy, windowless sheds and confined to wire cages, gestation crates, barren dirt lots, and other cruel confinement systems … The green pastures and idyllic barnyard scenes of years past are now distant memories."

Even if you can't imagine life without meat, check out Meatless Monday, a campaign that introduces people to the health and environmental benefits of going meat-free one day a week.

Be inspired by these celebrities who (according to various reports) opt for meat-free diets, and add any additional celebs you admire as vegetarians in the comments below:

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Comments

[desertgirl315]

12:48 PM on 11/11/2011

Just because we were made creatures of reason and given domain - does not give us the right to destroy all other life on the planet. With dominion comes responsibility! If you have the upper hand - then you are the most responsible. It is your duty to love, tend and protect all life! Just because we are capable of destroying whatever we want to destroy does not mean we are meant to or that it is right. People hurt and kill people every day. People hurt and children every day. These people, to society, are wrong and we do what we can to prevent and or punish offenders. We EMPLOY and PAY people to kill animals, to execute them and cut them up for consumption! We REWARD people for taking life! INNOCENT life!!!!! ... if any single person, can soberly look at this reality and truly not be shaken in their spirit, not be tossed about in their heart, then I am afraid for them and for every living creature that would ever have the displeasure of having crossed their path.

[desertgirl315]

12:46 PM on 11/11/2011

If this happened again to people we SAY we would not stand for it. Let me tell you, if a human is capable of hurting an animal, they are more than capable of hurting a child, or another human being. I never wish anything bad on any creature - but sometimes this topic makes me so angry I honestly couldn't care less about people (which is the wrong place to let myself come to and it does pass) and I wish they would all meet the same fate they are supporting towards other species. Somehow I fear and sense this is exactly what is coming.

[desertgirl315]

12:44 PM on 11/11/2011

What I don't understand is if a person hasn't been hit with a true awareness that it's wrong to consume another animal, why do you bother arguing, harrassing and persecuting those who have?

Bottom line for those who have had their hearts and eyes opened with compassion - There is no argument that will stand. I don't care if my body can adapt to eating meat. I could probably adapt to eating humans or hey, maybe even feces and urine - SHOULD I? Don't answer that. It's a rhetorical question. It's wrong to consume any animal - dog, cat, cow, lizard, snake, human, insect, whale, shark, monkey, elephant, rat, rabbit, fish, lobster, clam - YOU name it.

Just because an animal cannot defend itself or has no vocal chords, does not make it okay to kill it.
It does not mean it is not suffering just because you cannot hear it scream.

Unfortunately I am not surprised by the insensitive backlash. The Nazi's were killing Jews among many others for years before anyone did anything about it. Now the world winces when we think about it. There are some who are fighting that it never even happened - even though there are survivors and film and photos with proof!
But it's not OUR doing, because we're a new generation and we had no part. Well, every day WE murder innocent animals everywhere and people consume some and others are just trashed and incinerated like garbage. Shame! Shame! Shame!

[Sunwyn Ravenwood]

05:25 AM on 10/20/2011

Seen on a tee-shirt: "Meat is murder. Tasty, tasty murder."

Another one says "Vegetarians taste better."

[mrsentinel]

02:25 PM on 10/16/2011

Okay, what's with the sparkly shirt and scarf? Is he trying out a magic act or something?

Probably "or something."

[kjjmac51]

11:22 AM on 10/16/2011

No wonder Russell Brand looks so creepy.

[No-name-plz]

10:15 AM on 10/16/2011

They don't look like a healthy bunch of people. Something is missing from their diets.

[CASnyder]

10:39 PM on 10/15/2011

Bill Clinton & Mike Tyler were the biggest surprises to me. My dad's story was almost identical to Bill Clinton's, but my dad's cholesterol blockages around his heart gave him congestive heart failure & did so much damage (his doctors sent him home to die), that even the shift to a vegan diet, which gave him an almost immediate improvement in circulation, energy, and ability to work better than his peers, couldn't mend the damage to his heart and another heart attack took his life even as he felt he was on the mend. But since then our entire family has been vegetarian if not vegan. Our genetic predisposition to heart disease on both sides of our family is effectively neutralized while we continue to eat this way, and best of all, we can eat as much food as we want without gaining weight, and the food has more variety and tastes better. I was an obese teen who went vegetarian while in college for economic reasons prior to my dad's heart troubles, and I dropped the extra weight so fast without effort due to the diet shift and biking everywhere, that my father was worried I'd gone anorexic. I told him not to worry, I liked to eat to much for that, and I was eating a larger volume of (healthy) foods than ever before.

[Bones Rhodes]

04:42 PM on 10/15/2011

If pigs were NOT intended to be eaten, they would not contain bacon. THEY evolved bacon: it's a suicidal tendency encoded into their own DNA.

[Dierdra Zeus]

10:05 PM on 10/15/2011

Pigs are more intelligent than dogs-so how do you eat one and love the other? There are studies that equate the intelligence of a pig, with a three year old child.

But even without the intelligence issue-it is wrong to kill other live beings because people like the way they taste.

As an animal lover and someone who values the life of every creature on this planet-I always find it hard to understand, how others can ignore where their food is actually coming from.

When I see meat on someone's plate-I see in my mind, whatever the animal was.

A cow, pig, chicken, sheep, fish, etc.

But most of all-I see the tiny, desperate baby animals (calves and lambs) that have been torn from their Mama and kept in a tiny cage, all alone and crying (just like any baby), until ready to be taken to slaughter (screaming all the way.)

There is NO line between them and domestic companion animals-there is only greed and lack of caring, by the majority of humans, about how they live on factory farms(while we pamper our domestic pets in our homes.)

It makes me sad to be a human, and it makes me proud to be a vegan-all at the same time.......

[Bones Rhodes]

01:35 AM on 10/16/2011

So, in your estimation, the degree of sentience determines the edibility ? You eat plants: they aren't alive ? How do you know that they aren't sentient at a level we have failed to understand ? You think a sea cucumber has more sentience than a mimosa ? Unless you are absorbing your nutrients directly from the soil, sun, and air: you , too, kill living things to survive

. But, we will assume that the more intelligent and mobile something is, the worse the sin of killing and eating it for this discussion.

Why do you have those pointy teeth ? Why is your digestive tract capable of handling meat ? I'm therefore assuming ( danger ) that you find any creature that must kill another creature, which has a certain level of sentience of your subjective determination, to live is also evil ? So, when do we start a movement to eradicate sharks, felines, canines, raccoons, weasels, bears, most birds, most fish, spiders, etc. and so-on excepting animals which are totally herbivores and can exist completely on plant material which has expired naturally ?

BTW: referencing another reply you have made on this subject ( that ALL animals feel pain and fear ) : just how many oysters have you seen scared to death ?

[Bones Rhodes]

01:40 AM on 10/16/2011

PS.

Dogs aren't considered domestic pets by all societies: many consider them as "on the menu" as did our own misnamed Indigenous Americans.

[IndependentAndProud]

02:26 AM on 10/16/2011

You do what you want and I'll do what I want, but consider this: If you were to give up pork for a year or two, then go back to eating it your system would reject it and you'd likely get sick, as happened to me. On the other hand, were you to give up broccoli or peas or apples or any other vegetation for a year or two and then resume eating it your body would have not negative reaction. We are not designed to eat animals. We simply adapt to that diet, which is not at all healthy for us.

[Bones Rhodes]

12:54 PM on 10/16/2011

Uh, actually at one time I was addicted to bacon: was eating like a pound a day ( and , no, I didn't weigh a ton - was actually severely underweight @ 125# and 5' 8" ). Went cold-turkey ( or cold-pigge) for several years. Next time I ate bacon, it was like a pound at a sitting with nothing more than the bad effects of wishing the package wasn't empty.

"We are not designed to eat animals. We simply adapt to that diet"

Tell that to the chimps: also check out the same items I mentioned to Dierdra Zeus ( vitamin B12 and occipital crest ) and get back to me with an explanation. Fact is, we, as humans, COULD have foregone the meat --- and this computer you are debating with me on.

[elcerritan]

12:54 PM on 10/16/2011

This is nonsense. Lots of people go back to eating pork after having been vegetarian or vegan for a while, sometimes for a long while, without their systems "rejecting" it. In fact, if all the stories told by ex-vegans out there (and there are A LOT of them) mean anything, bacon often seems to be the "gateway" meat for vegans to return to the sane world of omnivorism. We are as "designed" to eat meat as we are to eat fruits and vegetables and probably MORE "designed" to eat it than to eat a lot of grain. That's why humans are omnivores, and that's why eating meat is perfectly healthy for us, contrary to your nonsensical claims.

Know what's NOT healthy for us? Eating lots of refined grains, added sweeteners, and added vegetable oils (hmmm - all things derived from PLANTS).

[dw1968]

11:41 AM on 10/15/2011

Vegetarian is an old Indian word that means...BAD HUNTER =D

[mrsentinel]

03:08 PM on 10/14/2011

Had some bacon for breakfast, a cheeseburger for lunch and for dinner, a nice prime rib will be consumed. I did my part for vegetarian day. Thank you.

[Bones Rhodes]

04:35 PM on 10/15/2011

--bacon is actually a type of fruit.

[mrsentinel]

02:16 PM on 10/16/2011

ROFL

[Dierdra Zeus]

10:08 PM on 10/15/2011

Fascinating, that you care so little for your health, or for other living beings....

[mrsentinel]

02:17 PM on 10/16/2011

Lighten up, Diedra. It was mant to amuse, not to bemuse.

Love what your father is doing with the whole lightning thing, though.

[SkeeBee]

09:42 PM on 10/13/2011

"World Vegetarian Day" and you choose Russel Brandt for the picture.
Shouldn't you use a veggie that is more likely to DRAW people to giving the idea a try, like a potato, or a cob of corn, or sumpin' instead of that tool?

[elcerritan]

12:58 PM on 10/16/2011

Yeah, he looks sort of like a serial killer, doesn't he? Buth then the editors at this site have never been known for their good sense in choosing photos to illustrate stores. Half the time the photo isn't even of the thing the story is about (e.g., using a picture of ordinary earthworms to illustrate a story about some exotic worm that lives deep in the ocean ... I could go on). So I guess we're lucky the photo is actually of one of the people included in the article.

[SkeeBee]

01:33 PM on 10/16/2011

I was actually making a, little too subtle, joke that the vegetable in the picture, (Brandt), wasn't the best choice.

[Sabra Bruning]

07:27 PM on 10/13/2011

I think I'll go have a steak.

[Al Schrader]

07:16 PM on 10/13/2011

Ok use caution. I went vegan. After about 6 weeks I started to feel amazing. Free of the fats and grease. I jumped out of bed in the am. But after about a year I started passing out. A blood test showed my B12 level at 297 . Anything less than 300 is fatal. You absolutely cannot get B12 from non animal sources. Humans must eat animals. Those two pointed teeth in your upper jaw are not for rutabaggas....Al-

[Sabra Bruning]

07:28 PM on 10/13/2011

"Those two pointed teeth".........................LOVE IT!

[Al Schrader]

07:38 PM on 10/13/2011

Yes pointed teeth, one on either side in your upper jaw. They are not there for biting broccoli, they are for tearing meat. Humans are meat eaters and are not herbavores....Al-

[Inannawhimsey]

04:53 PM on 10/13/2011

All hail this wonderful universe we live in where for life to exist, life must be destroyed. Thank you, life, for giving of yourself.