Natalie Portman, renowned for her acting prowess, is also admired for her dedication to health, fitness, and ethical living. A vegan for many years, she integrates her dietary choices into a lifestyle that encompasses motherhood, producing, and co-founding a women’s football club. This article explores Natalie Portman's vegan diet, examining how it has evolved and supported her demanding career and personal life.
A Decade of Veganism: The Foundation of Portman's Diet
Natalie Portman embraced veganism around 2009 after reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals. This pivotal moment led her to eliminate dairy and eggs from her vegetarian diet. A decade later, she co-produced and narrated a documentary adaptation of the book, highlighting the realities of industrial meat production and the ethics of factory farming.
Portman's food philosophy revolves around balance, emphasizing the joy of eating while ensuring her choices are compassionate and sustainable. She prioritizes foods that are positive for other creatures and cause no harm.
Daily Diet: Clean Eating and Vegan Delights
Portman generally adheres to a clean diet, starting her day with oatmeal or avocado toast. She enjoys Mexican cuisine, often opting for tacos for lunch. To celebrate Earth Day, Natalie shared a tasty Lentil salad recipe with roasted potatoes, kale and vegan feta. For dinner, she favors pasta dishes and has shared her Spicy Chickpea Stew recipe.
One of her favorite snacks is vegan ice cream, which she keeps stocked in her freezer. She particularly enjoys Magpies’ soft serve “fried pie,” which reminds her of Carvel ice cream cake from her childhood, and Van Leeuwen’s mint chip and matcha scoops.
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In a Harper’s Bazaar article, Portman mentioned that she usually has oatmeal or avocado toast in the morning and takes vitamins, including vitamin D and prenatal vitamins. Once a week, she treats herself to a beer or a glass of wine in the evening.
The Influence of Roles: Adapting the Diet for Film
Portman's diet and workout routines have varied significantly depending on the demands of her roles.
"Black Swan": Achieving Leanness
For “Black Swan”, Natalie had to get very lean and slim, preparing for an entire year to play a ballerina! Her training included Mary Helen Bowers' Ballet Beautiful Method, a mix of mat work and ballet. To give her joints a break, she swam 1.5km (1 mile) every day.
"Thor": Building Muscle on a Vegan Diet
Natalie’s role as Jane Foster in the Thor movies required her to bulk up, presenting a new challenge since she was used to having to look small in her movie roles. She trained for 10 months with trainer Naomi Pendergast to build arm and abdominal definition. Pendergast says that their focus was building her arm and abdominal definition and Natalie gave 100 percent to achieve this, never complaining. They also worked on her stability and agility since Natalie had to do quite a few stunts in the movie and they wanted to make sure they went as smoothly as possible with no injury.
Her workouts included boxing, skipping, core work, and weightlifting. Cardio involved three rounds of boxing for two minutes followed by one minute of skipping, with rest periods in between. She’d finish this up with a cool-down session which included stretching and release with a foam roller.
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During filming, Portman consumed a vegan-based breakfast of oats and berries with a protein shake. Snacks on set consisted of fruit, nuts, and salads. This increased food intake was essential for maintaining the muscle she developed.
Portman, a vegan, had to find ways to get enough protein in during the day so she could gain muscle.
Home and Family: A Balanced Approach
When Portman moved back to Los Angeles from Paris, she embraced seasonality and began buying the freshest produce from farmers’ markets. This led to her and her husband, Benjamin Millepied, starting a robust garden with herbs, chard, artichokes, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, lemons, avocados, figs, peaches, and olives.
Millepied handles most of the cooking for the family, while Portman makes couscous, Tagines, veggie stir-fries, chilis, and other “one-pot, throw-it-all-in” dishes, along with hummus or tahini. While Portman adheres to a vegan diet, her husband eats meat, and they allow their children to make their own dietary choices. Her son, Aleph, has become an animal rights activist and is passionate about vegetarianism.
Favorite Vegan Alternatives
Natalie Portman has discovered the best vegan alternatives for her favorite foods. She recommends Lightlife bacon, Impossible Burgers, and Kite Hill’s garlic-herb spreadable nut cheese. These ingredients come together to create her dream vegan bacon cheeseburger.
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The Beauty Benefits of Veganism
Portman credits her vegan diet for her luminous skin. She emphasizes the importance of diet and drinking plenty of water for maintaining healthy skin.