Take a look at some of our favourite vegan TV moments that helped shape perceptions of veganism for the better.
With television and film forming a big part of the fabric of culture and society, it holds great power in shaping how people and things are perceived.
With veganism exploding over the last decade, it has inevitably seeped its way onto our television screens.
There have been times when plant-based diets and lifestyles are the butt of jokes on TV, but there have equally been moments on television that have had lots of people talking about veganism in a positive light the following day.
From David Attenborough throwing his support behind going plant-based to rescue the environment and all the beautiful animals people tune in to see on his programmes, to foodie shows such as The Great British Bake Off and Masterchef beginning to incorporate vegan food and dishes for the first time, there have been lots of great episodes on TV to celebrate as vegan wins.
Here, Vegan Food & Living takes a look at some of our favourite moments on the small screen to date.
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Kirk Haworth, co-founder of plant-based restaurant Plates, was the first plant-based contestant to feature on the show. Photo © BBC
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Kicking things off with a very recent example, this year saw London chef and restaurateur Kirk Haworth claiming the ‘Champion of Champions’ 2024 title on The Great British Menu.
Witnessed nationwide on the BBC, the programme is also available to watch on Amazon Prime. Haworth is a vegan chef and owns the plant-based restaurant Plates in Shoreditch, London. No mean feat, as he was the first vegan contestant ever to feature on the programme.
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The legendary broadcaster encouraged viewers to adopt 'more efficient' plant-based diet in the third series of 'Planet Earth'. Photo © Dave Benett via Getty Images
When it comes to nature, our planet, and the millions of species of animals we share it with, there are few greater authorities on the subject than broadcasting legend Sir David Attenborough.
In October of last year, his hugely popular series Planet Earth took on all new significance when Attenborough used the opportunity to tell viewers that what we choose to put on our plates has a massive impact on the climate catastrophe.
“We rear 70 billion farm animals each year, and every one of them needs feeding,” Attenborough said.
“Producing food for such numbers of domesticated animals is having a profound impact on the natural world. Year after year, we clear over two million hectares of the Amazon rainforest – that’s the size of Wales. We use nearly all of it to make more space for cattle and to grow soya to feed livestock.”
The actor used his speech to give a voice to the voiceless, slamming the injustice cows in the dairy industry are subjected to as they are artificially inseminated by farmers before “stealing their babies.”
When it comes to celebrity vegans, it’s difficult to think of a more tireless activist for animal rights than Joaquin Phoenix.
He has taken part in campaigns for PETA, including the We Are All Animals campaign, encouraging the public to “live vegan” and “help end speciesism.”
He has also been spotted at vigil events with other vegan activists outside US slaughterhouses, which aim to bear witness as animals are driven into the slaughterhouses on lorries and raise awareness to the public.
Up against Leonardo DiCaprio, Antonio Banderas, Adam Driver, and Jonathan Pryce, Phoenix scooped the coveted 2020 Best Actor award for his performance as the titular character in Joker.
This was to be Phoenix’s most outspoken moment yet, as he used his acceptance speech to highlight cruelty in the dairy industry to an audience of over 23 million people watching around the world.
“I think we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world. We go into the natural world and we plunder it for its resources. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable. Then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal.”
Budding entrepreneur Omari McQueen (who is now 16) has many strings to his bow with prestigious awards, a restaurant, a line of dips and snacks, and a cookbook already under his belt by just 12 years-old. Photo © BBC
If you ever get that feeling of being behind in life, try to avoid comparing yourself to Omari McQueen, who, only in his young teens, owns a vegan food business, his own cookbook, has won awards for his cooking, and in 2020 landed a TV show on CBBC.
Running for a full season on the BBC’s children’s channel on Sunday mornings, What’s Cooking Omari? inspired children between seven and 16 years old to try simple and delicious vegan meals for themselves.
In 2023, a follow-up show entitled Meet The McQueens was announced, starring Omari and the rest of his family.
The dynamic duo starred in a 10-part vegan cookery series, 'Living On The Veg', to show just how accessible and tasty vegan cooking can be. Photo © ITV
If you live in the UK and know a thing or two about its vegan scene, you’ve probably heard of vegan cooking duo BOSH!.
Henry Firth and Ian Theasby have been a very positive force for the plant-based movement in the British Isles, with their vegan cookbooks selling over one million copies and their line of vegan products landing in supermarkets and huge chains such as Costa Coffee.
The close friends, who hail from Sheffield, starred in the ITV cooking show Living On The Veg in early 2020.
As part of their mission to make vegan eating as accessible as possible, the pair veganised some of the world’s most popular foods on the programme, including pizza, burgers, breakfasts and desserts.
Mother and daughter duo Jeanette and Jaida from Fi Real, a vegan Caribbean restaurant located in Old Market, delivered servings of flavour to the unsuspected surprise of their competition. Photo © Fi Real
Channel 4’s Come Dine With Me became an instant hit when it first aired in 2005, in which contestants would invite each other into their homes and cook for each other, with the highest-scoring meal taking a big cash prize. The cooking from the amateur chefs would range from good to catastrophic.
In a 2022 episode of the spinoff series Come Dine With Me: The Professionals, in which restaurants are pitted against each other, Bristol vegan restaurant Fi Real won the day.
Serving up plant-based takes on Caribbean cuisine, Fi Real were up against a Mediterranean and a Mexican restaurant, who initially made jokes about the vegan food before admitting defeat and eating their words.
The fiery chef has been famously anti-veggie in the past, even once joking that he was ‘allergic’ to vegans. But in recent years, his stance has softened, and he has started to embrace meat-free dining. Photo © Dia Dipasupil via Getty Images
Speaking of people who love to take the mickey out of vegan food, someone who has never been a stranger to a vegan joke is sweary celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey.
The serial restaurateur, who has been a hit on both British and American television, partly due to his penchant for unloading a barrel of obscenities at fellow chefs and waiting staff on his food programmes, has been known for butting heads with vegans on social media.
He’s tweeted jokes such as: “I’m a member of PETA! People eating tasty animals.”
He has begun to soften a little in recent years as he announced vegan options at his restaurants, saying that he liked how vegan food was “Keeping chefs on their toes.”
In 2022, he sent shockwaves throughout the foodie world as he appeared on Masterchef: Back To Win in the US, teasing it with: “It’s a secret that’s so big, I’m almost afraid to say it on national television.” He went on to say: “After all these years, I can finally admit, that I actually love vegan food.”
He added that it took him “20 years to get to this point.”
The episode challenged the contestants to create a dish free from animal products for a place in the semi-final and featured Michelin-star guest chef and vegan Alexis Gauthier. Photo © BBC
Yes, it’s the programme that inspired the legendary ‘buttery biscuit base’ meme. And in 2019, one of British television’s biggest food and cooking shows boarded the vegan train with a fully plant-based episode.
Hosted by chefs Gregg Wallace and John Torode, Masterchef contestants were challenged to come up with their own vegan cuisine, worthy of Michelin-star restaurants.
Speaking of Michelin stars, one of the guest stars on this episode was Alexis Gauthier, one of the UK’s renowned chefs who went vegan in 2016 and owns Gauthier Soho, possibly the most high-end vegan restaurant in London and the UK.
Freya said she was "desperate to show the world vegan baking is just as exciting with the hope to inspire people to give it a go.” Photo © The Great British Bake Off
The Great British Bake Off is firmly placed as one of the most popular programmes on British television, providing wonderful escapism with its chirpy hosts like Noel Fielding, filmed in picturesque and calming Berkshire countryside, and a dazzling array of cakes and bakes.
The downside for the vegans among us is that it’s usually all about dairy, eggs, and occasionally meat is used. However, series nine flirted with veganism with an all-vegan episode (the very popular season in which Rahul Mandal was crowned).
Bake Off took this a step further in the 2021 edition of the programme, when its first fully-vegan contestant, Freya Cox, entered the competition.
Hailing from Scarborough, Cox resolutely stuck to only using plant-based and cruelty-free ingredients throughout her time on GBBO (except during the technical challenges where bakers are given set ingredients in a blind baking challenge), something that celebrity baker and host Paul Hollywood commended her for.
“I was desperate to show the world vegan baking is just as exciting with the hope to inspire people to give it a go,” Cox said on Instagram during the show’s airing. “For obvious reasons I wasn’t able to change the technical challenge as it would mean the whole show was unfair … but once the show has finished, I have plans to veganise the recipes for you all, so I hope this makes up for that.”
In 2021, the show encouraged its young viewers to become ‘climate heroes’ by pledging to switch off lights and appliances not being used, drinking from reusable water bottles, and choosing meat-free meals. Photo © BBC
Having been on our screens since 1958, Blue Peter is officially the longest-running children’s TV show in the world — many children and adults alike will attest to what a big part of their youth it formed.
On a 2021 episode, Blue Peter launched a campaign that encouraged its young viewers to become ‘climate heroes’ by going meat-free, as well as turning off appliances and lights not being used in the house, and opting for reusable water bottles.
Those who completed the two-week pledge could earn themselves a green version of the beloved Blue Peter badge.
In the show, investigative journalist Samantha Poling journey into the controversial world of live animal exports and uncoveredshocking truths about what happens to the male calves the Scottish dairy industry has no use for. Photo © BBC
The dairy industry has kept its behind-closed-doors cruelty and its devastating environmental damage a closely guarded secret, so any exposure this receives on television is gratefully received within the vegan community.
A 2018 episode of BBC’s Disclosure did just that, exposing cattle shipments and live animal exports via investigative journalism.
Samantha Polling was the journalist helming the episode, tracking a shipment of cows as they were moved across Europe to Scotland.
Viewers, many of whom would have been seeing such events for the very first time, saw footage of artificial insemination, calves being taken from their mothers, male calves being culled, and the awful physical endurance cows are put through as they are milked on an industrial scale.
Vegan Come Dine With Me winner Kate wowed her guests with classic dishes with a vegan twist. Photo © Kate Thompson
Come Dine With Me is back with another big vegan moment — no professionals on this particular episode, instead it was Kate Thompson rustling up winning vegan grub that saw her winning against her meat-eating competition.
She wasn’t the first vegan to appear on the show, but she was, however, the first to prove that plant-based home-cooked meals were worthy of winning one of Channel 4’s longest-running programmes.
Filmed in the North East, Thompson went for a Roaring Twenties-themed menu, with dishes including a veggie-filled asparagus tart, a meaty mushroom bourguignon with duchess potatoes, and sealing her victory with sticky toffee pudding and homemade vanilla ice cream.
The vegan queen is vocal about animal rights on their Instagram, and even recreated Pamela Anderson’s famous ‘All animals have the same parts’ PETA campaign in a white bikini. Photo © BBC3
Walking on to a show announcing “I’m vegan!” while sporting a pink skirt emblazoned with ‘vegan bitch’ is some way to make an entrance, and that’s precisely what Bimini Bon-Boulash did during a 2021 episode of the second season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK.
They went on to say “I’m East London’s plant-based princess. I’m like, the most famous vegan in East London because I don’t stop going on about it.” Bon-Boulash even joked that “I invented veganism about seven years ago.”
The iconic show cut out meat on screen, instead only serving vegan and vegetarian meals at in-show locations such as the Queen Vic and iconic cafe Kathy’s. Photo © BBC
If just seeing the title Eastenders is enough to put that iconic credits music in your head, apologies in advance if it’s stuck on a loop in your brain for the next hour or so.
Take solace in knowing that in 2020, the four-decades and 33 seasons-running show hired an ‘eco-consultant’ to use plant-based food as props to reduce food waste and the programme’s carbon footprint.
The decision was taken due to the fact vegan foods could be reheated for multiple takes, were more sustainable to source, and not to mention the fact no pigs, cows, or chickens needed to be harmed. So any fry-ups seen on screen were, in fact, Quorn sausages and vegan bacon.
Vegan snack brand Crave has since secured listings at other major supermarkets after winning the Store Cupboard round on Channel 4’s 'Aldi’s Next Big Thing'. Photo © Channel 4
Crave, the vegan snack sensation, snagged a big deal with Aldi when they aced the Store Cupboard round on Channel 4’s Aldi’s Next Big Thing and now their Pickled Onion Monster Feet and Smokey Bacon Streakers crisps are on Aldi shelves since November last year.
Rob Brice, the mastermind behind Crave, said, “I had this lightbulb moment when I realised so many free-from foods were either snooze-worthy or too obsessed with health. I thought, let’s jazz things up, let’s bring some flavour and fun back!”
Since then, Crave has landed another big deal, this time at Morrison’s with their Flamin’ Hot Wots’inits.
“We know our fans were eagerly anticipating the Wots’inits launch since first appearing in the Aldi TV show. And we are super pleased to now be able to bring them to the market; a cheeky rival to another Flamin’ Hot crisp snack some may say.”
16. Simon Amstell’s Carnage takes the UK by storm
Photo © BBC
Starring Martin Freeman, Joanna Lumley, rapper JME, Alex Lawther, and narrated by Amstell himself, Carnage became a massive talking point on its 2017 release.
A short film set in 2067 in which the world is almost entirely vegan, and meat-eaters have been reduced to a tiny, underground minority, viewers see the world through the lens of a society where eating meat, dairy, and eggs is seen as a great shame and stain on human history.
Simon Amstell has also spoken out about his vegan lifestyle in his standup comedy and has performed at Vegan Camp Out.
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