Famous, influential and... vegetarian

Vegetarianism has a long tradition in the human collective consciousness. It may seem like a trend which emerged in the last years, but bothering about the source of one's food is actually quite older than that.

So here's a short summary about famous six popular persons who are known being or having been vegetarian, or have at least expressed some thoughts on the topic.

Buddha

There are different interpretations of the description of Buddha's food. Some followers like the Mahayana school believe he consumed meat and that he only found it wrong if a living being was purposely killed for the eater. Well, this is actually true in most cases - since it is rather rare to find a freshly dead animal on the way. So according to the interpretation, one may conclude that Buddha kept a vegetarian diet.

Leo Tolstoy

He regarded giving up meat as a step on the way to leading a better, moral life and the growing number of vegetarians (in 1892!) as a sign of the "moral progress of humanity". I'm quoting here a part of an essay that particularly impressed me.
"This is dreadful! Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity—that of sympathy and pity toward living creatures like himself—and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life!"
Preface to a Russian translation of Howard Williams' The Ethics of Diet, 1892

Hitler

OK, I admit I was kind of surprised to read this. I thought that being a vegetarian could make you a better person, but I guess I was totally naive, once again. Anyway, as far as Hitler is concerned, he only became vegetarian in his later life, somewhere between 1937 and 1938. According to the transcripts of Martin Bormann, Hitler even said: "One may regret living at a period when it's impossible to form an idea of the shape the world of the future will assume. But there's one thing I can predict to eaters of meat: the world of the future will be vegetarian." Crazy, huh? I leave you with the assimilation of this information.

Paul McCartney

Paul and his wife Linda became vegetarians in 1975. He engaged himself a lot for the idea and participates in a number of campaigns to promote a meatless diet and animal protection. This is also true for his daughters, Stella and Mary.
In an interview with PETA, he said: "People say to me: Don't you miss a traditional sausage? I say: No way! I would never go back" [watch it here]

Natalie Portman


© By gdcgraphics, CC BY 3.0

She's vegetarian since she was a child and later became also a vegan. We don't hear much about it, but she even designed a vegan shoe collection. It wasn't very successful and some celebrity magazines define it as a "flop" and compare it to Hulk Hogan's pasta restaurants, which I find very superficial. I doubt she expected any profit from the vegan shoes - but at least she tried to gain some publicity for the topic and promote what she believes in.

Christine Lagarde

There's not much to find about Lagarde's diet or beliefs - but it's known that she abstains from meat. According to Forbes, she's one of the most powerful women in the present. Here's a quote from Тhe Washington Post, 30.10.2014, where she explains how she manages to keep her vegetarian diet even at official dinners:
"[Washington Post reporter] I’ve read that you’re a vegetarian and and eat very healthfully — how do you pull that off that when you go to dinners like this all the time?
[Lagarde] My staff does a great job of alerting people that I don’t eat meat, but if they’ve forgotten or the people seating me have forgotten, I just put the meat aside, cover it with salad, and pretend that I have really enjoyed my main course."

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