Here's Why Dr. Jane Goodall Stopped Eating Meat in the '60s
"I stopped by the end of 60-something like that," Jane said of eating meat.
Updated Oct. 8 2025, 3:43 p.m. ET
The legendary Dr. Jane Goodall lived a life full of compassion and advocated for animals, sharing her immense knowledge with generations of people eager to soak up her wisdom before her death in October 2025 at the age of 91.
Dr. Goodall's climate activism was inspiring for countless compassionate people seeking a better, safer, healthier world, and she has clearly lived a long life as an environmental leader and role model.
All of that said, does Dr. Goodall maintain a vegan diet?
We know that Dr. Goodall published a vegan cookbook in March 2021 entitled #EATMEATLESS: Good for Animals, the Earth & All; however, did she herself maintain the very diet about which she wrote?
Was Jane Goodall vegan?
According to an April 2017 post written by Dr. Goodall on the Jane Goodall Institute website, she maintained a plant-based diet. At one point, Dr. Goodall initiated an #EatMeatLess social media campaign; however, the website accompanying the pledge to eat less meat now redirects to a donation page instead.
"I chose to eat plant-based all those years ago. I continue to ask people to consider what this choice really means on a moral and practical level for animals and the environment," she wrote at the time.
As Dr. Goodall's interview attests, she maintained a vegan diet for many reasons, including animal suffering.
"I remember when I first learned about intensive factory farming," she noted in the video interview with Discover Your Motive. "I was utterly horrified...The next time I looked at a piece of meat on my plate, I thought, 'This symbolizes fear, pain, and death, and I don't want to eat that.' So from that moment, it was just, boom, I stopped by the end of 60-something like that."
Dr. Goodall cited Peter Singer's landmark 1975 book, Animal Liberation, as opening her eyes to the realities of factory farming.
Based on the timing of her quote and the release of Singer's book, it's safe to assume that Dr. Goodall had been vegan for about two decades, and probably read Singer's book around the early-2000s.
Interestingly, though, in the June 2015 interview published by the Dr. Jane Goodall & the Jane Goodall Institute USA YouTube account, she used the term vegetarian rather than vegan to describe her diet after becoming enlightened by Singer's monumental book.
"I am indeed a vegetarian and I became a vegetarian because I read a book about intensive farming and I was utterly shocked and I didn't realize animals were treated in that way — of course, I do now," she said.
Dr. Goodall repeated the same phrase about meat on a plate representing fear, pain, and death in both the 2017 and 2020 videos, indicating that perhaps her recognition of the proper terminology for her diet evolved over time.
Regardless, Dr. Goodall was a tremendous activist, a groundbreaking individual, and her diet was free of animals.