Vegetarianism has become more popular among famous people over the last couple of years. People choose to be vegetarians for health purposes or because they are concerned about the harm done to animals, or for both reasons. Many people today also believe that vegetarianism is better for the environment. One of the most famous vegetarians was the scientist Albert Einstein. Einstein only became a vegetarian later in his life when he had concerns about health and believed that avoiding meat would be helpful.
Other scientists that were reportedly vegetarians were Nikola Tesla and Sir Isaac Newton. Nikola Tesla strongly believed that vegetarianism was much better for the body, stating how meat was difficult to digest. Thomas Edison was also a vegetarian and also believed that avoiding meat would increase mental clarity and physical health. Primatologist, Jane Goodall is also a vegetarian. She says she had learnt about how cruel animal production was and how bad it was for the environment.
Sir Paul McCartney of the Beatles group is a well-known vegetarian who is also a member of the animal anticruelty group known as PETA. Another animal rights activist is the Canadian actress Pamela Anderson. This is her main reason for being a vegetarian. The actress Olivia Wilde is a vegetarian. She is thought to have adopted this eating pattern at 12 years of age and does it for both ethical and health reasons. Another actress who is a vegetarian is Christina Applegate who was concerned about how animals are treated and has been eating vegetarian since she was a teenager.
Actor Russell Brand also became a vegetarian at a young age, at 14. He stated that he is soft hearted when it comes to animals and that this was the main reason for his vegetarianism. American director and writer, Richard Linklater has been a vegetarian since his 20s. He even made a movie that showed the cruelty of the animal production industry. The movie he made was quite graphic and it apparently made many of his crew members at the time convert to vegetarianism.
US inventor Benjamin Franklin read a book when he was 16 years old that was written on the vegetable diet. He decided then and there to become a vegetarian. He was also appalled at the cruelty that animals endured in the animal production industry so stuck with his diet for ethical reasons as well as health reasons. Some famous athletes are also vegetarians. Carl Lewis, who won 9 gold medals at the Olympics, is one such athlete. He ate beans instead of meat as his source of protein, and it did not appear to have affected his performance since he medaled in 1984 and had been a vegetarian since 1980.
Famous tennis player Martina Navratilova is another vegetarian athlete. She stated that she felt physically better and actually had much fewer muscle cramps after exercising once she switched to a vegetarian diet. Vegetarianism has become even more popular over time, largely as people have become more environmentally conscious.
