Today, Eddie Huang—restaurateur, author, and former host of Viceland’s food travel show Huang’s World—vowed to go vegan. Huang took to Instagram to explain that while he formerly liked to consume animal products, he no longer wanted to partake in the environmentally destructive practice after watching videos of the wildfires currently burning in Brazil’s Amazon region—which environmentalists say were started by cattle ranchers to clear land for beef production.

 
 
 
 
 
View this post on Instagram
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

After watching videos of the Amazon on fire this week, Ive decided that this corned beef I ate at Junior’s last week will be the last piece of beef I ever eat. I love beef, I love ox tails, I love Peter Luger’s, I loved growing up in a steak house cutting NY Strip on xanax. It was soothing but beef is fucking us. Actually, we are fucking ourselves on multiple levels and we need to make changes. Im going to go vegan because it takes 20 times less land to feed a vegan than a meat eater and over 90% of the land cleared in the amazon rainforest since 1970 is used for grazing livestock, but if all of us just stopped eating BEEF it would solve huge problems. Eat fish, eat chicken, eat pork until the next crisis but if all u can do now is quit beef, please do it. I know a lot of ass backwards people think vegetarianism or veganism is some uppity white girl thing to do but its not. There have been Asian Buddhist Vegetarians for thousands of years, Ital Rasta, Hindu as well, this is not some new age thing to laugh at. We are getting back to roots, healing the Earth, and ourselves. Ive eaten my last bite of meat. I wish I had planned this better and ate my mom’s ox tail soup but fuck it. There really isnt time to waste. Some things have to start today. I started to get these feelings shooting the last season of Huang’s World and fasted for 5 days because my producer David’s mom said I looked sick. She was right. The 5 days not eating fundamentally changed me and I shot the second half of the season while intermittent fasting. Ive made a lot of food videos because I love food but more than anything because food was fertile ground for exploring difference, but I dont love what food tv and more importantly what food has become in our culture: a drug. I had a really rough 2018- early 2019, got high and just ate myself to sleep watching Harry Potter a lot lol but Im getting back on my shit. Take a moment, think about it, and reexamine your relationship with food because it’ll make the Earth and ourselves very very sick if we keep abusing it.

A post shared by Eddie Huang (@mreddiehuang) on

“I’m going to go vegan because it takes 20 times less land to feed a vegan than a meat eater, and over 90 percent of the land cleared in the Amazon rainforest since 1970 is used for grazing livestock, but if all of us just stopped eating beef it would solve huge problems,” Huang captioned a photo of what he said was his last meal of corned beef at NYC’s Junior’s restaurant. “Eat fish, eat chicken, eat pork until the next crisis but if all you can do now is quit beef, please do it.” Huang explained that veganism is often inaccurately categorized as “some uppity white girl thing,” and pointed to a variety of cultures that follow vegan lifestyles such as Asian Buddhists, Ital Rasta, and sects of the Hindu religion. “[Veganism] is not some new age thing to laugh at,” Huang said. “We are getting back to roots, healing the earth, and ourselves.” Huang pleaded with his followers to reconsider their diets, as well, stating, “Take a moment, think about it, and reexamine your relationship with food because it’ll make the earth and ourselves very, very sick if we keep abusing it.”

Share this

Become a VegNews VIP for exclusive vegan deals, inside scoop, and perks galore!

FIND OUT MORE