Kim Kardashian Is Loving Being Mostly Plant-Based: Just Don’t Call Her Vegan

With Keeping up with the Kardashians coming to a close after this season, you either feel like it can't happen fast enough, or you miss them already. Love them, hate them, or just want to ignore them, you have to admit that the Kardashians have become a cultural phenomenon and everything they do touches a nerve. When one or more of them alights on topics (like health, beauty, substance abuse, or good old fashioned family friction) that mirrors what is going on in the lives of Americans, it becomes a topic of discussion. And we all know someone who is "just like" Kim or Kourtney or Khloe or Kris, Kendall, or Kylie (or Scott or any of the other circulating characters), and when they do something we relate to or post something that inspires or enervates us, it gets a reaction. So plant-based Kim is in the news again.

First Kim K. posts that she is loving her veggie bacon and dried watermelon snacks and people think: If she can love that healthier-for-you food, so can I. Then, in a recent post, she shows herself at a photoshoot for her beauty line, with a cornucopia of fruit at her knees, and having honey poured all over her (including biting into a large honeycomb) to make the point about her "Matte Honey" collection. The thing is that honey is not such a vegan choice. Vegans will tell you that honey is an animal product and that most avoid honey so these photos won't make her many friends in the vegan community. (Honey can be extracted without hurting the bees or disturbing the hives, as we reported in an extensive interview with a beekeeper, who explained to The Beet that local beekeepers take great care of their bees, but that doesn't seem to be the case, or the focus, of this shoot.)

In all fairness, KKW is not professing to be vegan, nor even fully plant-based, just "mostly" plant-based for the sake of trying to eat healthier and for the planet. She has ditched fur, she told followers, stating that she has gotten rid of her old furs and only wears faux furs now.

Still the larger point seems to be that "plant-based" is working for her, and it can work for you too. When Kim announced a while back that she was getting serious about her plant-based diet, the plant-based world watched and waited to see if she meant it. Would she slip up and eat eggs, bacon, or be seen spooning up a Greek yogurt or a salad with feta chese? It turns out that the wait is over and KKW did, in fact, post a picture of "veggie bacon" and profess her undying love for this salty breakfast meat, except in her IG the bacon was Morning Star Farms' meatless veggie slices, and the post extolled the virtues of dried watermelon triangles as a crispy plant-based snack or treat. (It turns out that the Morning Star bacon has egg whites, which may or may not be something Kim was aware of at the time, but this would prevent purely vegan or plant-based eaters from buying.)

This isn't the first time that Kardashian has used her platform to advocate for a plant-based diet, but the last time she posted her perfectly organized fridge, everyone peered past her and into the shelves and commented on the fact that not everything in there appeared to be purely devoid of dairy, which then sparked an onslaught of "give her a break" type of comments, pointing out that with several of her kids and others in the household (then including Kanye) sharing one refrigerator, not everyone had to eat the same way as Mama Kim was espousing. This time, however, she appears to be going all-in on her "mostly plant-based" diet, and encouraging her followers to adopt similar healthy practices. In true Kardashian style, Kim shared her stories praising this particular veggie bacon while managing to turn herself into another meme.

The first story that she posted featured a vegan breakfast, with the star being Morningstar Farms’ meat-free bacon. She wrote “Best Breakfast! Someone recommended this veggie vegan bacon to me and OMG it is so good!” The reality star promoted this new meat-free bacon to her 203 million Instagram followers. She followed the breakfast with a photo of her looking disappointed claiming she’s judging her followers who haven’t transitioned to a plant-based diet. Even though it was obviously playful, we know where Kim stands.

In the same line of stories, Kim praised Dope Dry Munchies, which is a popular dried fruit brand that among other virtues, delivers food to the homeless as a way of giving back.

Although Kim hasn’t come out and said that she’s fully vegan, she shared in a recent Twitter Q & A interview that she is “mostly plant-based” and doesn’t eat meat anymore. The designer and part-time law-student now frequently advocates for a plant-based diet and shared that she is leading her sisters to eat more plant-based at least some of the time. She let her fans know that she and her sibs had all enjoyed plant-based sister brunch, which may just inspire others to try to bring their siblings to a similar "try it, you'll like it" meal.

Kim also has revealed that she’s banning fur coats, and is replacing all of her favorite furs with faux designs. Message to fans: You can keep all those iconic fashion looks and leave animals out of the equation.

For the vegan set: Note that Morningstar Farms bacon is a vegetarian product, but does contain eggs. Morningstar Farms plans to make all of its products vegan sometime this year, but the bacon is not a fully plant-based alternative. Kim may not worry about that detail, but for anyone who wants truly vegan bacon (sans egg whites), there's always Sweet Earth.