#EATMEATLESS: Jane Goodall Unveils Plant-Based Cookbook To Encourage Animal-Free Diets

Renowned anthropologist, animal activist and primatologist Jane Goodall recently shared news of The Jane Goodall Institute’s first ever cookbook titled #EatMeatless: Good for Animals, the Earth & All, which offers around 80 plant-based recipes that promise to be both healthy and inspiring.

Published by Simon & Schuster and with a foreword by Goodall herself, the book aims to showcase different ways an individual can switch to a plant-based lifestyle that is not only kinder to animals, but also to one’s own health as well as the planet.

Along with the institute, Goodall has launched a campaign that promotes plant-based eating and a sustainable lifestyle along with a pledge that supports this to accompany the book release.

Over the past year, cases of widespread zoonotic diseases and the disastrous ethics of animal slaughter have become headline issues for many consumer, on top of the link between livestock agriculture and carbon emission. The book beckons consumers to take another look at our food systems, and using 80 accessible plant-based recipes, helps home cooks conquer easy animal-free breakfast dishes, soups, salads, mains and desserts.

Some of the recipes in the book include banana pancakes with seasonal fruit syrup, summer vegetable minestrone, cauliflower-pumpkin seed tacos, and apple cranberry crumble bars.

Goodall ,who left home at the age of 26 to be in the company of animals and eventually ended up living in Tanzania where she helped protect the chimpanzees, said in an interview with AARP that the book is the need of the hour. “It’s becoming more and more clear that the obsession with eating meat and dairy products and eggs is totally destroying the environment. It’s creating methane, it’s wasting water, and it’s bad for our health.”

It’s becoming more and more clear that the obsession with eating meat and dairy products and eggs is totally destroying the environment. It’s creating methane, it’s wasting water, and it’s bad for our health

Jane Goodall

A long-time meat-eater, Goodall turned vegan overnight day while reading Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation. “I looked at this meal they served me — it was a bit of chicken — and I realized that it represented fear, pain and death. And I thought, ‘I don’t want anything to do with that.’ And that was the end of my eating any kind of meat.”

Goodall also believes that apart from ethical reasons, factory farms clear acres of forests and aggressively use pesticides, fertilizer and fossil fuels that are harmful to the environment.

She also stressed that plant-based eating has cardiovascular benefits, and also refers to studies that connect meat to human antibiotic resistance and ultimately, to superbugs.

Recently, a study conducted in the U.K. also found a connection between consuming foods that are derived from animals and nine illnesses that include pneumonia, diverticular disease, colon polyps, and diabetes. 

The pandemic has encouraged people from the U.K. to Hong Kong to purchase products that are sustainable and safer with many committing to continue these healthy habits even after the pandemic.

#EATMEATLESS: Good for Animals, the Earth & All by Dr Jane Goodall (US$ 35) is out now. You can sign the sustainable living pledge here.

Lead image courtesy of Weldon Owen Publishing.