It is Green Week here in DCU, which means that we are focusing on all things sustainable, plant-based, and other things to tackle the big scary thing which we know as climate change. With many people opting to start following a vegan or plant-based lifestyle, it is important to know the right people to follow on social media. That being said, here are some vegan and plant-based influencers you should follow, whether you are thinking of becoming vegan for health, climate or ethical reasons, or are just interested in sustainability in general.
The Happy Pear
David and Stephen Flynn are the well-known Irish twin duo behind The Happy Pear, and are located in Greystones, Co. Wicklow. They started their advocacy for plant-based eating back in 2004, with a focus on showing people how easy and healthy it is to do so.
Almost two decades later, The Happy Pear are probably Ireland’s most popular plant-based food influencers. They now have 4 cafes, over 40 ready-made meals sold in stores such as Centra and SuperValu, a vegetable farm where they grow microgreen, multiple online courses and 4 vegan cookbooks. As well as this, they have a YouTube channel where they post some mouth-watering recipes for free!
Earthling Ed
For people who have decided to be vegan for ethical reasons, Ed Winters will probably be your best guide to your new lifestyle.
Earthing Ed (named after the documentary Earthlings) became vegan after he watched the news about a poultry truck crashing, causing hundreds of chickens to be severely injured. According to a video on his YouTube channel, he felt like a hypocrite for being upset about the birds when he had chicken on his dinner plate at the same time.
Since then, Ed has become a very prominent vegan activist, educator and public speaker with 2 TED talks and multiple university appearances to name a few.
He is also the co-founder and co-director of Surge, an animal rights organisation, with their focus being “to create a world where compassion towards all non-human animals is the norm”. Ed also opened a vegan restaurant in London (where he is located) called Unity Diner in 2018, whose profits go towards helping animals in need.
Last year, he announced the opening of Surge Sanctuary, an 18-acre vegan farm and forever home to animals which have been abused by factory farming. So far, Surge Sanctuary has provided homes for multiple cows, ex-battery hens and turkeys, pigs and one sheep.
Rachel Ama
Rachel Ama is a vegan YouTuber with almost 560,000 subscribers to date. She became vegan after years of struggling with digestive issues, which ultimately led her down a spiral of documentaries about the meat industry.
“I saw how the meat and fish ended up on my plate. I was heartbroken. I’ve always considered myself an animal lover, having had pets all my life, but I hadn’t made the association and when I did, I went vegan the next day. I couldn’t bear the thought of eating animals,” she said in an interview with metro.co.uk in 2018.
Now, Rachel shares delicious recipes on her YouTube channel, which are mainly influenced by her Afro-Carribean roots. She has also published a cookbook called Vegan Eats.
Mic The Vegan
Mic The Vegan is a YouTuber from the US with a BSc degree in Sustainability and Environmental Science. Having been vegan for almost 10 years, he does in-depth videos on veganism from all ethical, environmental and dietary perspectives, always presenting academic research and data on the topics at hand.
These are only some of the vegan influencers you could start following, but the internet is vast and it’s easy to find influencers, vegan or not, to follow based on the content you prefer.