Wednesday star Jenna Ortega has confirmed that she abandoned her veganism while filming the hit Netflix show.
The 20-year-old actor said in an interview for WIRED that she reintroduced animal products into her diet while filming in Romania.
In a video that’s now been watched over eight million times, Ortega, who played titular character Wednesday Addams in the series, said: “I was vegan for a really long time.
“But I stopped being vegan when I went to Romania to shoot Wednesday actually because the food is very different there.”
She added that she wasn’t meeting her “nutrient requirements” so made the decision to start eating fish again.
“So I’m currently pescatarian,” she added.
Staying healthy on the vegan diet
While there is a common misconception that being vegan inevitably leads to deficiencies, it is possible to get all the nutrients you need on a plant-based diet.
Commenting on the video, one person wrote: “She probably accidentally got deficient in something and a doctor recommended she add fish back into her diet to fix it, that’s what usually happens. Could be done without fish.”
Others pointed out that Romanian food is traditionally meat-heavy, indicating it may have been difficult to find vegan food in the country.
One person commented: “Romanian here!!! And as I know, we’re pretty much ‘gourmet’ really. Like most of our traditional dishes are prepared based on meat so, being vegan in Romania is not impossible, but still really hard to achieve.”
Wednesday dropped on Netflix on November 23, 2022. It has proved hugely successful, and became the streaming service’s third most-watched English-language show ever this week.
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Potatoes, rice, noodles, fruit, vegetables, French fries, some breads, leafy vegetables. They have these items in both restaurants and markets everywhere in the world. But yes, it was probably much harder to be vegan in Romania. I lived in Kazakhstan for 13 years Would not have been too hard there but I wasn’t plant-based at the time.
That is just pure commodity. I am only vegan for two years now, but know many Romanians, who have been vegan from the 60s even. From 2020 there are quite a lot of vegan options, so that is not a strong excuse to quit being vegan. Sad
She isn’t Romanian and therefore not familiar with the areas there. Her health comes first. If there was a deficit and a doctor advised it, then I see no reason for your somewhat harsh judgement. We should be considering the above-mentioned as well as the schedule and amount of work she had to do.
I’m Romanian and vegan for more than 3 years… In the supermarkets, we have vegan offers similar to what you can find in Western Europe (vegan pizzas, vegan fish, vegan burgers, vegan chicken fillet, you can find almost anything) and there are even vegan restaurants… So I’m sure this was just a pretext…
You are Romanian though and are more familiar with the supermarkets. Not only do you not know whether it was “just a pretext”, but you seem to forget that she needs to consider her health with a very busy schedule in an unfamiliar place. Such assumptions as the one you have made are inconsiderate and uninformed.
Then what about the animals dying? Do you think her health is more important than those lives of hundreds of fishes who died, and must die to be on her plate? Don’t you think that’s a speciesism?
Of course, I understand she had to take care of her health and that’s important a hundred percent. But she could be healthy if she started to eat nutritionally adequate plant-based diet. She could go to a plant-based nutritionist and see what she was doing wrong to fix her problems without stop being vegan.
I think the problem here is that you only think about the actress, but not those poor animals who had to die without having done anything wrong. Fishes are conscious and they feel pain. It’s an useless suffering.
Flake!
That’s funny. I think Romania is one of the easiest European countries to be vegan in. The country is predominantly Orthodox, and many people “fast” 2 times a week. Religious fasting for Orthodox people means no animal food of any kind, therefore vegan.
In restaurants that’s tricky, as most of them won’t have many “fasting” food choices, but you can still eat a good meal, with beans as proteins, plenty of vegetables and stews, picked vegetables, etc.
The food is very much oriented around meat, but we love side dishes that are simple and plant based.
what an idiot! all food in the world is vegan, if it’s not vegan then it’s not food
Somehow I doubt your really THE Nimai Delgado…
That’s plain BS, honestly.
She was plant based, not vegan. Don’t know why these terms are being so easily confused. And all she needed was some legitimate nutrition advice too. Smh
To have fun??
If I had her income, I’d hire a personal vegan chef, a whole team even : /
She was never vegan. She was plant based. Big difference.
I would prefer to read about ordinary people instead of article after article about yet another “celeb” who abandons veganism when it suits them.
She’s young, needs to veducate herself more. But you can be very healthy as a WFPB vegan, don’t eat the processed vegan food/meats. I’ve been healthy for over 30 years eating this way. But she’s young and will hopefully educate herself. It’s tough at 20 to stick to anything but I applaud her for being honest about eating fish again.
It’s ridiculous. Everyone seems to not care about fish. Probably it’s because they look so different than us and live in a completely different environment… Poor fish. They did nothing wrong, they’re innocent. In a year, about 0.97-2.74 trillion fishes are dying only for those omnivores and pescatarians. The actress is promoting animal suffering. They’re creating uncountable death.
Travel can be surprisingly tough, even for seasoned vegans who know how to put meals together, and especially when one may not be in charge of the food prep. I’ve been on corporate trips where meals are organized and even in places like Sicily with high level chefs within a week I’m losing weight and deficient in protein as there was only one tofu meal (out of 6 dinners) and ZERO legumes. They would just take out the animal protein and serve the sides. On a recent cycling trip in Croatia where most meals were prepared on the boat accommodation, the meals were tasty but again super deficient in protein. The small grocers in both Croatia and Sicily also did not have much to offer. So as visitors with not full control or ability to get to main grocery stores this can fast be a problem.