Here’s a transcript for those that are at work without headphones (or whatever reason you can’t play the video):
Katie Couric: I know that you’re a vegan now and so you eat no meat, right? No eggs, no dairy products. You had a vegan wedding when you and Portia got married. Why did you decide to become a vegan and when did you decide? I know you care deeply about animal rights, and what changed in you?
Ellen: Animal rights sounds like they’re about to get the right to vote (laughs).
Katie Couric: How should I say it? Animal welfare?
Ellen: Yes, animal welfare. The welfare of animals. I always hear ‘animal rights’ and I just think it’s a crazy thing ’cause it’s really just the right to be left alone.
Years ago, I read Diet for a New America
And recently I read, not recently, it’s been about a year and 8 months or so that we’ve been vegan, but I read Skinny Bitch, first. And then, I forced myself to watch a documentary called Earthlings and it’s inside footage of factory farms and dairy farms. You just see that and you go, ‘I can’t participate in that. I can’t be a part of something that is suffering.’
It’s 50 billion animals a year that are killed. And I think we all fool ourselves that there is some kind of happy cow and that it’s a quick death and they just hit ‘em in the head and they’re out and they go through the whole… And it’s a very disturbing reality. And it happens every minute of the day and every commercial on the air has some kind of food product in it. Every mini-mall, every store. And you think about the consumption, and how fast they have to mass produce, and you can’t possibly put together in your head one healthy, happy animal. They’re all in pain. They’re all treated badly. They’re all diseased. And they’re all pumped with antibiotics.
I do it because I love animals and I saw the reality and I just couldn’t ignore it anymore. But a lot of people do it for other reasons and there’s many reasons to do it. I’m healthier for it, I’m happier for it. I really truly believe that we take in energy and our thoughts are important, and all that stuff. I believe in that kind of positive thinking and I can’t imagine that if you’re putting something in your body that’s filled with fear or anxiety or pain, that that isn’t going to somehow be inside of you. And I used to be a more anxious person and more edgy and everything was a little more jumpy and sad. And I think not putting that stuff in my body is…
And it’s hard to kinda live your life and know that that exists and watch people do it all around you and just go [shrug]. You gotta hope that one day that shift will happen.
Katie Couric: Did you see the documentary Food, Inc.? [Ellen nods.] So that probably just reinforced everything that you were feeling.
Ellen: Ya. Food, Inc. is a Disney movie compared to Earthlings. Food Inc. is nothing. I would like people to look at that, but it’s hard. It takes a lot. It takes a major shift in your life ’cause it’s easy to grab for something and it’s just there. But every time you think about what’s on your plate and what it was, you know, you just can’t do it.
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Breakfast: English muffin with margarine
Lunch: Amy’s black bean burrito and grapes
Dinner: Subway Veggie Max sandwich (by the way, I kind of love the Veggie Max sandwich. Mmm.)
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 at 10:33 am and is filed under Famous/Athlete Vegetarians, News and TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
