Feb 23, 2010 Filed Under: Articles Comments Off

In the final part of Celebrity Veggies Dawn Mellowship grills US actor Lisa Edelstein, who is currently starring in the FOX hit series HOUSE opposite Hugh Laurie. Lisa devotes a great deal of time to the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in their efforts to re-home rescued animals and pets.

Why veggie? When I was a teenager I had food poisoning from a bagel because the bagel was made on a grill with meat and I could taste the meat on the bagel. I got really sick. Then I started having these nightmares about meat, they were creepy like this dream where I sat watching myself eating chicken for half an hour, ripping off the meat and sucking on the cartilage, snapping the veins and knawing on the bone as you do. By the end of the dream I realised that I was actually eating miniature human legs and arms. That just shifted my understanding of things and I became a vegetarian and it suited me.

Difficulties: Politically I agree with being a Vegan but it is very hard on my feet. A lot of the stuff that vegan shoes are made out of is really toxic so we haven’t quite gotten there with that yet.

Misconceptions: The hardest thing for me about being a vegetarian is that people think they are doing me a really big favour when they slap a mushroom on me. I hate mushrooms! Their exclamation is ‘but they’re so meaty!’ Or they think that vegetarians are looking for food that resembles meat so they feel better about it. A lot of times when people try to become vegetarian they will eat that vegetarian processed, packaged horrible food that makes you feel really crappy!

New World Perception: It is about coming to a conscious understanding of what you are doing. Its cartilage, tissue, veins and bone and it was once a living creature. People think of meat as that packaged thing in the refrigerator section of the grocery store.

Societal Education: If people would just eat meat two days less a week it would make a huge impact.

An Inspiration: I try to talk to people about it. If you can’t completely change I understand but there are changes within what you are doing that are possible and they will not make you unhealthy or uncomfortable.

Fence Sitters Advice: Any change is best done a bit at a time. People go very extreme and then it can’t last and they have no education and no idea of how to eat because they have been eating one way their whole lives.

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