“Earthing” Ed Winters is a hugely influential figure in the world vegan community. A best-selling author, a public speaker, a social media personality, and even a Harvard Fellow, he has an outreach of well over 1 million across the likes of YouTube and Instagram and has worked with the likes of TedX, Google, Facebook, the University of Cambridge, and many more. More importantly, his work has inspired tens of thousands of people to go vegan. His debut book, This is Vegan Propaganda (And Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You) was published to instant acclaim in 2022.

Winters turned vegan after reading a tragic news story about a lorry full of live chickens that crashed in the north of England, scattering the animals across the carriageway, with those that survived the crash being severely injured, if not outright killed by passing cars. The empathy that Winters felt for the animals at that moment — and the thought of the KFC in his fridge — changed his life forever. He became vegan. Not only that, he became a very vocal advocate for veganism, debating with meat-eaters in the street and uploading the videos to YouTube. He also began giving talks, which like his debate videos, began going viral. Very quickly, Winters became a prominent voice for vegans and animals everywhere. Perhaps his most famous speech to date is 2018’s ‘You Will Never Look at Your Life in the Same Way Again’, which has been viewed 4 million times on YouTube and is still changing lives today.

In addition to his ever-growing success, Winters also remains involved with Surge, the animal rights activism group he co-founded in 2016. He also helped to start an official Animal Rights March, which grew from a few thousand marchers in London in 2016 to tens of thousands all over the world just three years later.