Leonardo DiCaprio on changing the food system
London - Actor Leonardo DiCaprio is leading an environmental change toward vegan food.
As well as recently investing in the brand Neat Burger, the actor has invested in a number of sustainable brands, including vegan snack company Hippeas.
In 2016, after winning the best Actor Academy Award for his role in The Revenant, he seized the opportunity to talk about the climate crisis.
DiCaprio is known for his commitment to environmentalism and said in his acceptance speech: “Climate change is real, it is happening right now, it is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating.”
The move had a big impact. The following day, Google searches for climate change rose 261 percent.
DiCaprio says he is investing in Neat Burger to disrupt the food system with sustainable alternatives. He says it’s one of the key ways we can make a real difference in reducing global emissions.
Meanwhile, another actor Joaquin Phoenix has just acquired film rights to Ingrid Newkirk’s book, Free the Animals. Newkirk is the founder and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
Finally, Babe and Green Mile actor James Cromwell recently glued himself to a counter to protest Starbucks vegan milk charge. The actor also called out the coffee giant for offering cow's milk for free, despite suffering in the dairy industry.
Cromwell gave up eating meat in the 1970s, and since then, has remained a passionate advocate for the animals. In 2017, he was arrested for trespassing after interrupting one of SeaWorld’s orca shows.
Cromwell is not the only celebrity to ask Starbucks to stop charging extra for dairy-free milk. Paul McCartney has also called for the coffee chain to make a change.
Lisa was born in Auckland at the start of the 1970s, living in a small campsite community on the North Shore called Browns Bay. She spent a significant part of her life with her grandparents, often hanging out at the beaches. Lisa has many happy memories from those days at Browns Bay beach, where fish were plentiful on the point and the ocean was rich in seaweed. She played in the water for hours, going home totally “sun-kissed.” “An adorable time to grow up,” Lisa tells me.
Lisa enjoyed many sports; she was a keen tennis player and netballer, playing in the top teams for her age right up until the family moved to Wellington. Lisa was fifteen years old, which unfortunately marked the end of her sporting career. Local teams were well established in Wellington, and her attention was drawn elsewhere.