Ellen, Portia explain benefits of being vegan
Posted May 16, 2012
Ellen DeGeneres Skypes in to Rachael Ray's show on Thursday while wife Portia de Rossi and their personal chef, Roberto Martin, cook up a vegan dish. As the chefs whipped up something from Martin's new book, Vegan Cooking for Carnivores, they all chatted about what a vegan diet can do for you.
Portia and Ellen have been eating vegan for five years, says de Rossi. "We both read a book called Skinny Bitch."
"I have to say too one of the best things about this is the weight loss," says de Rossi. "Because it's really hard to gain weight eating like this and you never have to count calories."
Ellen says her favorites foods are "red beans and rice, the sliders. … I thought that I was going to miss cheese, that that was going to be the hardest thing because I used to love everything, and so I thought cheese was going to be very hard, and it's not."
She adds that "cheese is so heavy," so once you skip it, "there is more room for cocktails. You can drink more!"
Ellen says her overall health has improved. "There's enough that you feel like you're eating really good food. You're full. I started seeing like my skin change, I used to get facials all the time and I had rosacea and I just thought I had rosacea and after two weeks my rosacea went away and I started losing weight and I had more energy, slept better."
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