Poker Legend Daniel Negreanu Goes ‘All In’ For New PETA Ad: ‘Vegan? You Bet!’

Hall of Famer Went Vegan Nine Years Ago—and He’s Never Felt Better

For Immediate Release:
September 9, 2015

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Sitting behind a pile of fresh veggies stacked like poker chips on a game table, Poker Hall of Famer Daniel Negreanu stars in a brand-new PETA ad that proclaims, “Vegan? You Bet!” The six-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, who calls himself a “student of nutrition,” wants to share with everyone how vegan meals are healthy and delicious.

“I became vegan in 2006 when I started taking healthy eating seriously,” says Negreanu, a vegetarian who made the switch after learning that vegans are less likely to suffer from heart disease, strokes, diabetes, cancer, and obesity than meat-eaters are. When he first went vegetarian, the other players would “eat piles of crap around the table, like mounds of dead animals every hour.” But in the last decade, attitudes around the poker table have shifted dramatically. “In the past they laughed at me, now they all want to try it,” he says.

The reasons to go vegan don’t stop there. “[A]lthough my veganism started out absolutely about health, it’s also become about the environment and animal cruelty,” he explains. “The way animals are treated and the conditions are atrocious. They’re force fed steroids, the chickens are de-beaked. You end up eating sick, diseased chickens because they’re living in shit. It’s like a holocaust on animals.”

Negreanu joins a growing list of celebrities—including Woody Harrelson, Joaquin Phoenix, Richard Linklater, Peter Dinklage, Paul McCartney, and many others—who have teamed up with PETA (whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”) to promote healthy, humane meat-free meals.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.