Kat Dennings Was So Inspired by David Attenborough, She’s Ditching Meat

Kat Dennings may have been willing to dish out or gobble up anything edible at the Williamsburg Diner as Max the waitress on the beloved sitcom 2 Broke Girls, but the star has gone plant-based in reaction to watching David Attenborough's film, A Life On Our Planet, and Attenborough himself is vegan in response to what he learned filming.

Several days ago, Dennings announced “I will never be the same. David Attenborough's film is a handbook for how the human race can come together to stop destroying our round blue home,” Dennings wrote, referencing Attenborough’s powerful new documentary, which debuted on Netflix earlier this month. “I’m definitely going plant-based starting tomorrow. Except for butter. But other than that,”⁣ she deadpanned. While the post has since been taken down from Kat's IG account, her 3.5 million fans saw it, and Plant Based News shared the details of Dennings’ post here.

Meanwhile, Dennings described the documentary as both “incredible” and “life-changing,” on her IG story. Stars like David Beckham and Billie Eilish are aligning with Sir Attenborough to share his passion for saving the planet in the wake of launching his moving doc, which highlights the precious, dwindling natural resources of our planet, in light of climate change and our accompanying consumption of animal products–which require more greenhouse gases to produce, grow and feed.

Following her original proclamation to lean more heavily into a plant-forward diet, Dennings shared an update on October 19th, alongside a throwback photo of her sporting a pirate’s eye patch and PJs. “Fun fact about your Uncle Kat: I am not vegan. I am, however, very excited to make more plant-based choices in my life, but please don’t hold me to any standard. I’m just a girl, looking at oat milk, asking it to love her,” she writes. “Now if you’ll excuse me I have to sprinkle ground-up fish onto my vegetable garden,” she jokingly concludes her post.

When stars proclaim they are vegan, their fans go wild, as Fantasia found out when she shared the news of her transformation on her IG this month, and throngs of her 4.2 million fans hit like or share. (The Beet had hundreds of thousands of readers clicking on that story and we are thrilled for Fantasia'ss new-found healthy choice. But going plant-based or vegan, or even moving toward it, is a personal and individual journey and not everyone is ready to make big pronouncements about their transformations.

Dennings appeared to reflect the idea that she is taking it step-by-step in her PJ pirate post. For many public stars, holding yourself to a standard or naming yourself "vegan" or even plant-based can have its pitfalls, since the pressure to be strict, or perfect, is too much for many. So it's smart for someone who makes a change as Dennings is to step toward it, lean into plants or eschew any label. Plant-forward, plant curious, or "mostly plant-based" is an easier way to describe your intentions, without adding too much pressure, The Beet believes.

In any care, fans were clearly excited by the star’s diet shift, with comments ranging from, “I have also started trying to make more small, plant-based choices so thank you for the cream cheese suggestion. I’ve got a bagel obsession I was feeling guilty about,” to the simple mantra “Oat milk is life.” (We kind of agree.)

Indeed, every small change does make a difference for your health, the planet, and animals, and we’re pleased to see more and more stars join the plant-based movement. If you’re new to the vegan world, check out these three simple tips to help ease the transition into plant-based eating.

Tossing some of that oat milk Dennings is staring at in her post into Katie Lee’s immune-boosting energy smoothie for breakfast sounds like a pretty excellent idea, too.