A major New York chef is going vegan in a bid to save the planet.
Eddie Huang, who is also a restaurateur and author, revealed his decision on Instagram, citing the major Amazon rainforest fires at the catalyst behind the move.
He said that after watching videos of the blazes, he decided that a corned beef dish he ate last week will ‘be the last piece of beef I ever eat’.
‘Beef is f*cking us’
“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,” he wrote on Instagram. “Actually, we are f*cking ourselves on multiple levels, and we need to make changes.
“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.”
Response
Huang concluded his post by calling on his followers to also consider making a change, writing: “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.”
The post garnered a largely positive response, garnering more than 40,000 ‘likes’.
Vegan charity PETA responded, saying: “Thank you for understanding the urgency and choosing to make change. Every person who goes vegan is making a difference and preventing future devastation. We appreciate your help in spreading this message.”