Meatless Mondays: Meat Repulses ‘The Mentalist's Owain Yeoman

TVRage is presenting a new series called Meatless Mondays, where we will showcase some of our favorite actors and actresses who are vegan or vegetarian. For those who don’t know, Meatless Mondays is a worldwide campaign encouraging others to eliminate meat from their diets once a week to improve their health and the planet’s health.

As a relatively new vegan myself, it’s inspiring to hear from fellow plant-based eaters and learn about their healthy journey - the successes and the difficulties. Going vegan or vegetarian isn’t just about eating healthy, but it’s about benefiting the planet, helping animals and treating your body right.

This Monday, Welsh actor Owain Yeoman is my feature vegetarian.

If this gorgeous man looks familiar, then it’s because you’ve probably spotted him on the CBS drama ‘The Mentalist.’ He plays CBI Agent Wayne Rigsby, who is not only all about putting criminals behind bars, but also about romancing fellow agent/love of his life Grace Van Pelt (Amanda Righetti) and being a dad to son Benjamin.

When he isn’t busy showcasing his acting talents on the small screen, he is busy being a vegetarian. It might surprise some that a hunk like Yeoman could be a vegetarian, but let’s immediately put a stop to such stereotypes: men can eliminate meat from their diets and still be manly. 

Yeoman wasn’t always a vegetarian and frequently incorporated meat into his daily diet. A huge thanks goes to his ex-wife Lucy Davis, who inspired him to kiss meat goodbye. Once during a meal, Davis tricked Yeoman into eating a vegan turkey cutlet. He couldn’t tell the difference. Combine that vegan cutlet with Yeoman’s avid love of animals and you get the reason for him changing his diet and lifestyle.

He’s even voiced his vegetarianism by starring in a PETA ad campaign (shown left).

“If I could be part of a message of awareness that there’s a broader spectrum of food and a healthier and more humane spectrum of food to choose from, then that was something, you know, really appealed to me,” Yeoman said about joining forces with PETA.

Now, just looking at a piece of meat disgusts the actor: “the fact that the meat on my plate was once a living, breathing creature became something I could no longer ignore or justify as food." He also adds in the video below, “I actually feel slightly repulsed when I see meat on the plate, because now I can’t dissociate it from being flesh.”

The 35-year-old actor absolutely loves his life as a vegetarian and animal activist. With his vegetarian diet, he takes his cooking passion to an entirely new level, “I’ve had more fun with vegan cookbooks and exploring the idea of a style of cooking and a type of cooking that I’m totally unfamiliar with, then any old, you know, cut of meat.”

His eating habits didn’t only change in real life, but also onscreen as Rigsby. As E! Online reports, in 2011, Yeoman revealed his regrets about the character traits he gave to Rigsby, “The only regret I have is that I made it so he eats a lot. I remember at the beginning Bruno [Heller, creator of ‘The Mentalist’] said to me, "Oh, you're doing the eating thing, you're going to regret it later," and I did. It really is hard to have to eat all the time.

“Once we were shooting a scene and I was eating lobster. We did take after take after take, and I must have eaten 19 lobsters by the end of the show. By the end they were spooning lobster on my plate saying, "Hmm, I'm not sure if this was your lobster or someone else's, but let's just put it on the plate and give it a try shall we?" It's a glamorous way to die, death by lobster. It's put me off lobsters for life. I've tried to have him eat better on the show. In fact, while playing Rigsby, I have become a vegetarian, so I guess you could say Rigsby is a vegetarian, too.”

It’s great to see that Yeoman has not only transformed himself, but also his character.

For skeptics, or those struggling with the decision to go vegan or vegetarian, I’ll leave you with this piece of advice from Yeoman: “as someone who felt they were a confirmed meat-eater, I guess ultimately if I can do it then anyone can. You know, it’s a really easy choice to make, and it’s a humane choice to make.”

You can catch Yeoman on the new season of ‘The Mentalist’ premiering Sunday, Sept. 29 at 10 p.m. EST on CBS.

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