‘Grand Hotel’ actress Adorno talks veganism

BY GEORGE DICKIE

Gracenote

Transitioning from an animal- to a plant-based diet doesn’t happen overnight.

As with anything, the body needs time to adjust and cravings occur. Also, there are social situations, restaurants, family gatherings and holidays to contend with, all tempting you to go back to old ways. A lot of people do.

But Justina Adorno, who plays socially awkward daughter Yoli in the ABC Monday drama “Grand Hotel,” found an unusual but effective way of staying on her straight and narrow path toward veganism.

“It was my love for animals, honestly,” she explains. “I love them so much and then I would learn another thing about what happens in the food industry and just go, ‘Ugh! What am I doing?’ ... Like I watch sometimes those horrible videos of ... what goes on in those factories, and I feel like that’s the biggest motivation for me, is just seeing the raw, nasty truth of things to make me go, ‘This is reality.’ So then it makes my ‘poor’ transition into veganism like I’m not giving anything up, actually. I’m actually saving lives instead of giving up a life, sacrificing a life.”

Talk to the 28-year-old Bronx, N.Y., native, and it’s clear she’s made the transition successfully. She’s downright evangelical when extolling the virtues of a plant-based diet, saying she feels better physically and mentally, especially knowing that her diet doesn’t require that animals die.