Natalie Portman has been a vegetarian or a vegan for many, many years. She was always very vocal about it, even writing about it in a now-infamous Huffington Post essay regarding Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals back in 2009. Natalie was criticized back then for the essay because while she defended her veganism in particular and Foer’s book in general, she took a novel approach – comparing meat-eaters to rapists. For. Real. Here’s the relevant passage:
I say that Foer’s ethical charge against animal eating is brave because not only is it unpopular, it has also been characterized as unmanly, inconsiderate, and juvenile. But he reminds us that being a man, and a human, takes more thought than just “This is tasty, and that’s why I do it.” He posits that consideration, as promoted by Michael Pollan in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which has more to do with being polite to your tablemates than sticking to your own ideals, would be absurd if applied to any other belief (e.g., I don’t believe in rape, but if it’s what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it).
[From Portman’s Huffington Post essay]
So, someone with such strong beliefs – strong enough to compare the non-vegan lifestyle to rape – should be able to stick with it even while pregnant, right? Wrong. As it turns out, while Natalie is pregnant, she’s been giving in to all of her rape fantasies about dairy:
Natalie Portman is giving into her cravings. The 29-year-old Your Highness star — who is expecting her first child with fiance Benjamin Millepied later this summer — is no longer a vegan.
“I actually went back to being vegetarian when I became pregnant, just because I felt like I wanted that stuff,” she said during a Monday phone interview with the Q100 Bert Show in Atlanta. “I was listening to my body to have eggs and dairy and that sort of stuff.”
“I know there are people who do stay vegan,” she added, “but I think you have to just be careful, watch your iron levels and your B12 levels and supplement those if there are things you might be low in in your diet.”
The Oscar-winning actress — who became a vegan in 2009 after reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals — doesn’t regret her decision to become a vegetarian again.
“If you’re not eating eggs, then you can’t have cookies or cake from regular bakeries, which can become a problem when that’s all you want to eat,” she laughed. “I actually wanted eggs at the beginning and then they grossed me out after awhile.”
Food cravings aside, Portman added that she doesn’t know the sex of her unborn child — and she has no plans to find out any time soon, either.
“People can say a lot of things and they have a 50 percent chance of being right,” she laughed. “I’m Jewish and I think in Judaism, there’s a lot of superstition around not doing too much before the baby comes.”
[From Us Weekly]
Look, she has every right to eat whatever she wants while pregnant (and not pregnant, for that matter). It’s good she cares more about giving in to her cravings and getting the necessary nutrients rather than trying to adhere to veganism’s limitations. And hey, it’s not like she’s actually eating meat again – she’s just given in to dairy! Still, it’s kind of funny considering what a big friggin’ deal she made about becoming a vegan. And I just love the phrase “raping dairy” now.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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