Al Gore Goes Vegan

Former vice president-turned-environmentalist and 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore has made the switch to a plant-based diet.

The public was not tipped off about it until a Forbes article on Hampton Creek, an egg-alternative start-up, said Gore is a “newly turned vegan.”

The Huffington Post says the switch might have happened back in February when a vegan meal was requested at a book event in St. Louis, MO.

Gore, who won the Peace Prize for sounding the alarm about climate change, has faced criticism over the years for eating meat while fingering the meat industry as a global warming contributor. Gore’s 2006 film, An Inconvenient Truth, touched on the issue.

“Whether it’s the whole Clinton/Gore ticket being vegan now, Oprah promoting meat-free eating, Bill Gates backing plant-based foods or the rise of Meatless Mondays, it’s clear that the way we farm and eat is shifting toward a better model,” Humane Society of the United States Food Policy Director Matthew Prescott told the Washington Post.

Former President Bill Clinton, with whom Gore served in the White House, has been a vegan for more than three years. Clinton said he switched after a scathing email from his doctor following his 2004 quadruple-bypass heart surgery.

In 2009, Gore told Australia’s ABC Lateline he is not vegetarian, but was cutting back on the amount of meat he consumed because the meat industry contributes to carbon dioxide emissions and depletes water resources.

Watch the interview:

Visit EcoWatch’s FOOD page for more related news on this topic.

[source: http://ecowatch.com/2013/11/27/al-gore-goes-vegan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=al-gore-goes-vegan]