As the result of an interview October 13 on the SuperSoul Sunday talk show, hosted by vegan environmentalist Suzy Amis Cameron, Oprah Winfrey committed to eating one plant-based meal each day for a full month.
In the interview, Amis Cameron, the wife of film director James Cameron, discussed her book OMD: The Simple, Plant-Based Program to Save Your Health, Save Your Waistline, and Save the Planet. In their exchange — which focused on the vegan lifestyle and the way simple changes in diet can have an effect on saving our planet — Winfrey was quick to see how eating one vegan meal a day fitted in with her long interest in healthy, particularly plant-based, eating.
The concept was readily “graspable,” she said, adding that, “My mind can hold that. I can receive that; that’s a doable thing. I can turn that into a fun exercise!”
But this is hardly Winfrey’s first foray into plant-based eating. She’s been interested in it for decades; the one-meal-a-day (OMD) regimen is only the latest regimen to capture her attention.
A Growing Awareness Leads to Animal Advocacy
Winfrey is well known for her long and passionate commitment to healthy eating. Her concern for the animals began back in 1996, when she announced she would no longer eat hamburgers after interviewing a guest on her talk show, a vegan cattle rancher she’d invited on to discuss controversial practices within the beef industry. He described the cruel practices involved in processing cattle into meat, including (now-banned) “rendering,” which involved turning cow organs into feed for other cattle.
Said Winfrey, “I learned a lot about how animals are treated and mistreated before they get to our tables.”
In 2016, Winfrey tweeted her then 33.5 million followers to urge them to join her in Meatless Mondays. More recently she established a chain of restaurants serving healthy food, called True Food Kitchen, which features a number of vegan and vegetarian dishes.
She has said, “It is appalling and beneath our humanity to allow the torture of animals for the sake of our gluttony.” Strong words from a strong — a plant-strong — woman.
One Interview, Wide-Ranging Beneficial Effects
Winfrey published the interview in O Magazine, aired it on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), and reached out to her huge Twitter audience (42.6 million at last count) to ask them to join her in eating just one totally vegan meal every day. So far, her tweet has garnered over 4,000 likes and 600 retweets!
She also talks about it In a video on her Instagram story. In it, Winfrey says, “If you’ve been thinking about going vegetarian or vegan, this is good way to lean into it, where you don’t have to give up everything you’ve been eating your whole life all at once.”
Her interview with Amis Cameron (co-founder of The MUSE School, the first plant-based school in the nation and now going global) was streamed on both the SuperSoul Sunday and Winfrey’s Facebook pages. You can find it now on Winfrey’s podcast, “Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations.”
