Plant-based diet, whether it’s vegetarianism or veganism, is growing to be popular. People are becoming more conscious of, not only their health, but also how their lives impact the world around them. Plant-based diet are known to leave much less carbon footprints and reduce animal cruelty, which at the end will benefit the environment and humanism.
And thanks to the power of social media, more people can be exposed to contents related to veganism. Amplifying the trend, even public figures are now embracing and actively promoting this lifestyle!
Image Credit: Davina Goh
Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/B8JRTCggm3f/
1. Davina Goh
From performing arts, news casting, corporate gig, to long distance swimming, Davina Goh seems to reflect a dynamic spirit. Passionately, she now becomes one of the most well-known vegan influencers in Malaysia. With her mouth-watering plant-based recipes, which she shares on her blog and Instagram @davinadavegan, Davina has been influencing the Malaysian audience towards this lifestyle.
Her journey was not overnight, though. It took her 12 years to completely drop eating meat. Yet, by approaching this lifestyle with positivity and patience, Davina has been able to be consistent and even influence many people. Her inspiring articles and videos address doable and healthy ways to embrace veganism.
Image Credit: Natalie Prabha
Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/B8SyUYcAGrY/
2. Natalie Prabha
Up-and-coming Malaysian model, Natalie Prabha is a vegan who has been actively advocating plant-based diet for almost 5 years now. Natalie herself is passionate about nourishing her body with nutrient-dense and rainbow coloured meals.
Whenever her crazy schedule allows, Natalie loves experimenting with vegan dishes in her Bangsar loft. Born with Chinese, Kadazan, and Indian descent, she frequently posts a variety of delicious vegan meals on her social media.
Coming from an eating disorder background as a teenager, she was very body-conscious and regarded food as toxic. She started her journey with a simple 30-days vegan challenge. She did go back to eating meat afterwards, but after a week, she realised that she didn’t enjoy it as much as she used to. So, she continued being vegan until now and never looked back. Through veganism, she finally found peace with food and even enjoyed making it.
Image Credit: Melissa Tan
Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CBIbamYgO_u/
3. Melissa Tan
Multi talented model, TV host, and actress, Melissa Tan, is actively advocating sustainability, eco-lifestyle, and veganism. The former Asia’s Next Top Model contestant is one of the founding members of The Green Guerilla, a Malaysia-based eco awareness platform on Instagram.
Melissa has inspired her followers to adopt this holistic lifestyle by sharing vegan food recipes, cruelty-free beauty products recommendations, and so on. She also actively participates in offline events, such as clothes-swap, seminars, and she was even pointed as Earth Day Network Ambassador in Malaysia.
Image Credit: Yin Yin Boey
Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CDOm11uJwOa/
4. Yin Yin Boey
Popularly known as Raw Chef Yin, she is one of Malaysia’s top raw vegan celebrity chefs. She has published 5 cookbooks, hosted Malaysia’s first raw vegan ‘uncooking’ show “VELICIOUS with Raw Chef Yin”, and became a speaker at TEDxUSMNibongTebal with her talk on “The Transformative Power of Raw Vegan Food”.
She trained at the world’s first classically structured raw and plant-based culinary school, the Matthew Kenney Culinary Academy and is now on a quest to inspire and encourage everyone to make delicious, healthy and energising plant-based meals.
Raw Chef Yin is Malaysia’s raw vegan celebrity chef with 5 books, a cooking show and countless demos and workshops under her belt. She trained at the world’s leading raw & plant-based culinary academy and now dedicates her time to helping others make beautiful, delicious raw vegan cuisine.
Yin’s journey began way back in the early 1990s, where she became aware of how meat wasn’t good for the body from books, magazines, and newspapers. She started off by being a pescatarian, eating mainly veggies and some seafood.
In 2014, she started transitioning to vegetarian, then full vegan. She also organised meetups with fellow raw vegans in Kuala Lumpur and discovered a small but thriving vegan community who have been supporting her lifestyle.
Image Credit: Elina Nasution
Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CB4W-C0pO5A/
5. Elina Nasution
Third runner-up Miss Grand Selangor 2019, vegan vlogger and Instagram influencer, Elina Nasution has been empowering fitness and health to many Malaysian audiences and communities. For the past couple of years, Elina has organised many successful vegan potlucks in the Klang Valley.
She was into fitness first, before she became a vegan. Starting her fitness journey in 2014, her main goal was around aesthetics only which led her to be underweight and got easily tired. She was also very insecure of her body and gave too many restrictions that led to a weight gain up to 20kg in 2 months.
So in 2015, she decided to take control of her life and try veganism. Instead of restricting food, she learned to appreciate and love what she eats. This lifestyle also helped her to grow stronger and support her hobby in powerlifting that Elina won 1st runner-up in her category at the Malaysia Powerlifting Open 2018, proving how eating ‘only greens’ can lead you to be strong and fabulous!