Michelle Langstone
A vegan diet is the sort of challenge the 800 Words star relishes. Says Langstone, “It’s good to be a bit uncomfortable as a human and broaden your ideas about life on this planet.”
What inspired you to become a vegan? Becoming vegan was a gradual process. I’d been a vegetarian for about 20 years, and knowing what I did about food production, the appalling treatment of animals and the harmful environmental effects of animal agriculture, my conscience wouldn’t allow me to be involved in that consumption any longer. Do you ever have to eat, or pretend to eat, animal foods when filming? I played a ravenous Russian mail-order bride in a guest role in James Griffin’s Diplomatic Immunity. In one scene I had to eat a huge amount of fried chicken within a page of dialogue. The art department was heroic, substituting battered kumara for the chicken, but by the end I felt so ill I didn’t eat kumara for three years. How would you describe your diet and lifestyle? I have a metabolism like a rocket – I eat a lot and I eat often.
What do you have for breakfast? Either toast with avocado and sauerkraut, or a smoothie with plant protein powder, mangoes, spinach, coconut milk, spirulina and ice.
My workday lunch is … whatever the caterers have going on set. Usually lots of salads, roast vegetables, legumes and perhaps tofu.
My favourite dinner is … steamed greens with pan-seared smoked tofu and a dressing I adapted from chef Yotam Ottolenghi – tahini, garlic, tamari, lemon juice and cayenne.
Do you have a guilty pleasure? My mum would like me to feel guilty about eating all the potato chips in her house. I do not feel guilty, I feel triumphant. What nutrition advice have you found most annoying? Bread being labelled a bad guy in the world of food. Bread is life. Bread is delicious and sustaining and lovely in every way. Actually, I’m annoyed in general by the labels that get slapped on food – theories constantly change and everyone seems to jump from one bandwagon to another.
800 Words, TVNZ 1, Wednesday, 8.30pm.