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’.

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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 Aug 23, 2019 at 5:44am PDT

‘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.”