Jane Goodall, the acclaimed conservationist who captured the world’s attention through her work studying the behavior of chimpanzees in Africa, died of natural causes at age 91 on Wednesday.
She was on a speaking tour in Los Angeles when she passed. And her commitment to working in her 90s aligns with a common trait of the happiest and healthiest people who live close to the age of 100, or beyond it: they often keep working and never retire.
Goodall’s dedication to her work and the health of the planet even trickled down to her diet. For decades, she only ate plant-based foods.
“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,” she wrote in an essay in 2017.
“That did it, and I went plant-based instantly.”
When I stopped eating meat I immediately felt better, lighter.
Jane Goodall
Conservationist and Ethologist
Goodall cited her main reasons for shifting to a plant-based diet as not wanting to support factory farms and the damage done to the environment by meat production. She encouraged readers of her essay to cut meat out of their diets for the same reasons.
The production of meat “contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and other markers that could adversely affect planetary health,” Maya Vadiveloo, an associate professor in the department of nutrition at the University of Rhode Island, told CNBC Make It last year.
Goodall also saw improvements to her health when she went plant-based. “When I stopped eating meat I immediately felt better, lighter,” she said.
Cutting red meat out of your diet can lead to better health outcomes like a lower chance of developing cardiovascular disease and cancer, according to Harvard Health Publishing. People who eat large amounts of red meat may also have a greater risk of dying at a younger age, researchers found.
“I didnʼt become vegan just because of my health. I became vegan for ethical reasons,” Goodall told The National in January.
“Iʼm vegan for the environment.”
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