The Golden Globes is the first major awards ceremony to go vegan. | Leslie Grow/Beverly Hilton
The Golden Globes Awards ceremony is going vegan — for this year’s event, at least. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) announced on Thursday that the menu at the 77th ceremony will be plant-based to promote environmental sustainability.
The entirely vegan menu is a last-minute change to the original previewed last December, which included fish. Per the Hollywood Reporter, attendees will dine on chilled golden beet soup topped with locally grown chervil and amaranth. The main course is a vegan wild mushroom risotto with roasted purple and green Brussels sprouts, round carrots, and pea shoots. For dessert, a vegan take on the opera cake — a French cake consisting of a coffee-syrup soaked sponge layered with ganache, coffee-infused French buttercream, and a chocolate glaze.
“We had the menu with fish. Then we got together with the HFPA and they wanted to make this change to send a good message. It’s definitely the first Golden Globes that has gone vegan,” Beverly Hilton executive chef Matthew Morgan said in a statement.
The HFPA is taking other measures to ensure a greener Golden Globes. The red carpet will be reused at other events and glass water bottles will replace plastic.
“The climate crisis is surrounding us and we were thinking about the new year and the new decade. So we started talking between us about what we can do to send a signal,” HFPA president Lorenzo Soria said in a statement.
Soria continued, “We don’t think we’ll change the world with one meal, but we decided to take small steps to bring awareness. The food we eat, the way it is processed and grown and disposed of, all of that contributes to the climate crisis.”
A 2018 study published in the journal Science found that a plant-based diet is the most effective way to combat climate change. Meat and dairy use 83 percent of the world’s arable farmland. These industries also account for 60 percent of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers analyzed the footprint of 40 food products that make up 90 percent of global food consumption. By cutting out meat, land usage could be reduced by 75 percent.
Oxford University researcher Richard Poore told the Guardian: “Agriculture is a sector that spans all the multitude of environmental problems. Really it is animal products that are responsible for so much of this.”
The Golden Globes is now the first major awards ceremony to go vegan — but, last year’s Oscars after-party offered a plant-based menu developed by Austrian chef Wolfgang Puck.
The 2020 Golden Globe Awards ceremony will air live on Sunday, Jan. 5 at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT on NBC.
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