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The Chomp covers vegan culture, animal rights, plant-based food, science, research, and the people and ideas changing how we think about animals and what we eat.

We spend years teaching children to be gentle, kind, and compassionate, then hand them a completely different set of rul...
09/03/2026

We spend years teaching children to be gentle, kind, and compassionate, then hand them a completely different set of rules for certain animals.

A child can look at a chicken, pig, or cow and simply see someone curious, afraid, playful, or alive. The categories come later: pet, food, farm animal.

Maybe the goal isn’t to teach children to love animals.

Maybe it’s to make sure we don’t teach them to stop.

Sadie Sink says working with Woody Harrelson helped her go vegan.The story didn’t start there, though.Sink has said she ...
09/02/2026

Sadie Sink says working with Woody Harrelson helped her go vegan.

The story didn’t start there, though.

Sink has said she first went vegetarian as a young teen after starting to think more seriously about where meat comes from.

But while filming The Glass Castle, she found herself around something different: longtime vegans who made the lifestyle feel normal, doable, and not extreme at all.

One of them was Woody Harrelson.

Sink later said she spent time with Harrelson’s family, including a three-day sleepover with his daughter, and realized she felt good eating vegan food and didn’t feel like she was missing anything.

That experience helped shift veganism from something abstract into something real.

She also said that learning more about the egg and dairy industries pushed her further.

So this wasn’t just a celebrity trying a trend. It was a gradual change: first vegetarian, then exposure to people actually living vegan, then realizing she could do it too.

Sometimes all it takes is seeing that another way of living is actually possible.

Sources: ELLE, System Magazine, Interview Magazine

The Draize eye test sounds like something that should belong in a history book. It doesn’t.In the test, researchers plac...
09/02/2026

The Draize eye test sounds like something that should belong in a history book. It doesn’t.

In the test, researchers place a substance in the eye of a live rabbit and monitor the resulting irritation or damage. The OECD’s current eye-irritation guideline still describes the albino rabbit as the preferred animal for the in vivo procedure.

Humane World for Animals says tests connected to cosmetics can still involve chemicals being dripped into restrained rabbits’ eyes to assess ingredient safety.

And this isn’t because every tube of mascara or bottle of shampoo needs to be tested on a rabbit. In the U.S., the FDA explicitly says animal testing is not required to market a cosmetic.

Companies must substantiate safety, but they can use existing toxicology data and other scientifically sound methods instead.

Multiple non-animal approaches now exist for assessing eye hazards, including methods based on reconstructed human cornea-like tissue and other in vitro systems.

The OECD itself has been developing and accepting these approaches as replacements or parts of testing strategies designed to reduce reliance on the live-rabbit test.

So while animal testing for cosmetics has been banned or restricted in many places and its use has fallen considerably, the Draize eye test has not disappeared everywhere.

For something as ordinary as a cosmetic ingredient, that feels like a pretty extraordinary thing to still have to say in 2026.

Sources: OECD, U.S. FDA, Humane World for Animals.

We’re told eating animals is just nature. Just tradition. Just “the circle of life.”But there’s something worth noticing...
09/02/2026

We’re told eating animals is just nature. Just tradition. Just “the circle of life.”

But there’s something worth noticing about how disconnected most of us are from the actual killing.

Animals go in. Packaged products come out. The part in between is kept far away from the grocery aisle, the restaurant table, and usually from public view.

That distance matters.

Because if the process were truly as ordinary and instinctive as the phrase “circle of life” makes it sound, you’d think we’d be a lot more comfortable looking directly at it.

Instead, we’ve built an entire food system that makes it very easy to consume the end product without confronting what happened first.

That doesn’t automatically settle every argument about eating animals.

But it does raise a fair question:

If we’re so comfortable with the result, why are we so uncomfortable with the process?

Lentils, spinach, black beans, white beans and chickpeas can all contribute meaningful amounts of iron, no obscure “supe...
09/02/2026

Lentils, spinach, black beans, white beans and chickpeas can all contribute meaningful amounts of iron, no obscure “superfood” required.

These cheap, familiar vegan staples can show up in everything from soups and curries to grain bowls, tacos, and salads.

Plant foods provide non-heme iron, and absorption can vary.

Pairing iron-rich foods with a source of vitamin C, like peppers, citrus, tomatoes, or berries, can help your body absorb more.

Simple food. Solid nutrition. Very vegan.

What’s your go-to iron-rich plant food?

Sources: USDA FoodData Central, NIH Office of Dietary Supplements

Oreo’s parent company has ended voluntary animal testing.Mondelēz International, the company behind Oreo, Ritz, Triscuit...
09/02/2026

Oreo’s parent company has ended voluntary animal testing.

Mondelēz International, the company behind Oreo, Ritz, Triscuit and other major snack brands, has updated its animal-testing policy in 2026.

The company now says it does not conduct, fund, or contract animal testing unless a government regulator requires it and no approved non-animal alternative is available.

The change closed a loophole that had previously allowed Mondelēz to fund animal experiments for “nutritional science” even when those tests were not required by law.

According to PETA, the policy change followed a campaign backed by more than 63,000 supporters, along with shareholder pressure and meetings with Mondelēz leadership.

It’s an important distinction: this does not mean Mondelēz has eliminated every possible animal test. Testing can still occur when legally required, and no alternative exists.

But experiments performed simply by choice are now off the table.

For animals used in laboratories, progress can look exactly like this: one more company deciding that suffering doesn’t need to be the default.

Sources: Mondelēz International; PETA

Even their metaphors aren't vegan...
09/02/2026

Even their metaphors aren't vegan...

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and USDA, as...
09/01/2026

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and USDA, asking a federal judge to withdraw the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The group alleges that the government departed from its normal public advisory process and instead relied heavily on an outside group of reviewers with ties to food and diet industries.

According to the lawsuit, 8 of the 9 members of that outside group had financial or professional connections to interests including beef, dairy, pork, eggs and the low-carb diet industry.

That allegation matters because the government's official Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee had reached some notably different conclusions.

Its scientific report recommended emphasizing beans, peas, and lentils; increasing plant-based protein foods; and reducing red and processed meat. It even proposed listing protein categories in this order:

Beans, peas & lentils → nuts, seeds & soy → seafood → meat, poultry & eggs.

The committee said the reordering was intended to emphasize the health benefits of eating more plant-based protein.

PCRM now argues that HHS and USDA improperly bypassed the transparent advisory process required under federal law when developing the final guidelines. It wants the current guidelines withdrawn and replaced through a process it says complies with the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

Important distinction: these are allegations in an active federal lawsuit. A court has not ruled that HHS, USDA, or the reviewers acted improperly, and the 8-of-9 conflicts claim has not been established as a judicial finding.

But the question behind the lawsuit is worth asking:

When national nutrition recommendations can influence school lunches, federal food programs, and what millions of Americans are told constitutes a healthy diet, how much industry involvement is too much?

Sources: U.S. District Court for D.C.; Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine; 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Scientific Report; Keller & Heckman.

People love to say vegan food is “trying too hard to taste like meat.”Meanwhile, meat is getting rubbed with garlic, oni...
09/01/2026

People love to say vegan food is “trying too hard to taste like meat.”

Meanwhile, meat is getting rubbed with garlic, onion, paprika, pepper, herbs, citrus, smoke, oils, sauces, and half the plant kingdom before anyone calls it delicious.

Maybe plant-based food isn’t always trying to taste like meat.

Maybe meat has been trying to taste like plants this whole time. 🌱

We’re very good at calling the animals we love “family” and the animals we use “food.”But those categories don’t change ...
09/01/2026

We’re very good at calling the animals we love “family” and the animals we use “food.”

But those categories don’t change what the animal experiences.

A pig doesn’t suffer less because we call them livestock. A cow doesn’t value her life less because we turned her into a product. A chicken doesn’t become less deserving of compassion because we decided she belongs on a plate.

Veganism is, in part, refusing to let a label decide whose suffering counts.

The hierarchy is ours. The animals just live with the consequences.

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