In a 2017 personal essay, Goodall urged people to stop eating meat and shared that she herself had given it up decades earlier.
“I stopped eating meat some 50 years ago when I looked at the pork chop on my plate and thought: this represents fear, pain, death. That did it, and I went plant-based instantly,” she wrote.
She added that she “immediately felt better, lighter” once she stopped eating meat.
In an interview published in February, Goodall told The National that she went vegan for “ethical reasons” but soon “realised the other benefits to our health.”
“Our gut is not made to eat heavy meat and we can get lots of digestive problems,” she said. “Now we also know that animals in these horrible factory farms are intelligent and how they are cooped up is absolutely terrible.”
Goodall said she welcomed the shift toward plant-based eating.
“I’m vegan and I’m fit as a fiddle,” Goodall said. “A plant-based diet is really, really important and, luckily, more and more people are becoming vegetarian or even vegan.”
A 2021 study by researchers from the University of Naples suggests that a plant-based diet rich in olive oil and tomatoes can help lower the risk of heart disease. Eating more fiber can also help with gut health and weight loss.
In 2022, researchers at the University of Bergen in Norway found that eating more plants and fewer processed foods could extend life expectancy by up to 10 years, with beans, whole grains, and nuts offering the greatest benefits.