If you don't want people to start chanting, "Fatty, fatty two-by-four, can't fit through KFC's door," you might want to put down that drumstick and pick up some Gardein buffalo wings instead. A recent study of hundreds of thousands of Europeans revealed that the more meat people ate, the more weight they gained over time—and chicken is the big culprit.

This is important to tell everyone: Researchers found that the people who were most likely to gain weight were also those who ate the most chicken, followed by processed meats and red meat.

Researchers at Imperial College London in the U.K. found that people who ate more meat gained about a pound a year on average, even if they consumed the same amount of calories as people who ate less meat. And most meat-eaters eat far more calories than do vegetarians or vegans. And predictably, the more meat people ate, the more weight they gained. For every additional 8.8 ounces of meat that people ate daily, they packed on about four and a half extra pounds over five years.

"Our results suggest that a decrease in meat consumption may improve weight management," wrote the study's authors in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Hurry—surf on over to GoVeg.com and order a copy of our vegetarian/vegan starter kit today, before you end up looking like this.

Written by Alisa Mullins

artsandopinion / CC

With President Obama's push to reform health care gobbling up reams of newsprint lately, we decided that the time was ripe to put forth our modest proposal for lowering health care costs: raise insurance premiums for meat-eaters.

Now, before you Hardee's fans reach for your defibrillators, hear me out. Insurance companies charge you higher rates for other risky behaviors, such as smoking and skydiving, so why not charge you for chowing down on burgers and brats? After all, a Chili's Big Mouth Bites meal (which includes four "mini" bacon cheeseburgers) packs a whopping 2,350 calories! That's more calories than most people should eat in an entire day.

PETA has written to the top two medical insurance providers suggesting that they stick it to raise rates for meat-eaters while simultaneously lowering rates for vegetarians. In our letter, we point out that compared to meat-eaters, vegetarians are less prone to a myriad of ailments—including heart disease. (Heart disease, for those who are taking notes, is America's number-one killer disease.)

But hey, why wait for your insurance company to start charging you extra for those Buffalo wings and Philly cheese steaks? You can start doing your part to slash health care costs today by ordering a free copy of our "Vegetarian Starter Kit."

Written by Alisa Mullins

Here’s a blog that I’ve been pushing Amy at our VegCooking blog to write since the idea of having a PETA food blog was still in its infancy. Amy, however, is against processed foods. I’ve been hoping Amy would go on vacation, or be sick, or something so that I could fill in for her on her blog, but I’ll have to settle for posting on The PETA Files while Jack is out.

This is a blog to spotlight the glory of McCain’s SMILES fries. According to McCain’s web site, “Mealtime is fun time with McCain SMILES® Fun Shaped Potatoes. Everyone enjoys these fun shaped potatoes that add fun and excitement to everyone’s meal!” And you know what—they aren’t lying! Sure, I love French fries as much as the next guy, but there’s just no denying that SMILES fries are like French fries deep fried in fun.

SMILES, like basically all fries, are vegan and that’s how I’m justifying writing about them on PETA’s blog. Take that, Amy!

Another food I really like is Vans’ vegan waffles.

- Joel Bartlett

P.S. Feel free to comment about how you think I’m a better blogger than Jack and Amy.

P.P.S. Don’t worry Amy, when you’re out someday I’ll post SMILES recipes on the VegCooking Blog.

You may have heard about the latest “solution” to the world’s energy crisis and global warming. This one is perhaps the most absurd idea yet, coming to us courtesy of the well-known environmental stewards of the meat industry.

Last week, oil company ConocoPhillips and the largest meat producer in the world, Tyson Foods, announced that they will soon begin producing diesel fuel from the fat of pigs, chickens and cows. While on the surface this may not sound completely insane, given that the fuel will be made from rendered animal remains currently used in nonvegan soaps, cosmetics and pet food, the reality is that this whole idea has nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with lining the pockets of Tyson and ConocoPhillips execs.

Let’s be real here. The meat industry does not care about the environment. Period. In fact, it is one of the absolute worst corporate environmental offenders on the planet. Take for instance the recent U.N. reports pointing out that animals raised for food generate more greenhouse gases than all cars and trucks combined, and that (according to a recent University of Chicago study), switching to a vegan diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Prius.

No matter what kind of crazy PR spin the meat industry tries to put on it, at the end of the day what it comes down to is that the answer to global warming isn’t to fill up SUVs with the remains of tortured animals. The most effective thing anyone can do to help the environment is to go vegetarian, and until we accept that fact, all the plastic bottle recycling, Prius driving, and tree-planting are barely making a dent in the problem.

I don’t want to come off all gloom and doom here, quite the opposite really. When you consider that we all have the opportunity to “vote the environment” at mealtimes three times a day, it’s actually pretty exciting. If you’re looking for resources to help make the transition to vegetarianism, you can check out our vegetarian starter kit and start saving the planet, one bite at a time. It beats the hell out of pig fat biodiesel.

Not only do the folks over at Smashbox Cosmetics not test their products on animals, but they have these great store displays—and check out the cruelty-free bunny logon on the top of the Smashbox website:

As if that weren't enough to make us really big fans of the company here, they’ve just teamed up with us to make it easy to give your mom a great Mother’s Day gift this year. They’ve made two new eye shadow palettes (I had to ask for help on that one, I was just going to call them “thingies”) in PETA’s honor that will be sold exclusively at Sephora stores. Which was pretty damn nice of them.

Short on cash? You can try your luck in a contest to win free palette thingies here. The grand-prize winner also gets a $100 Smashbox gift certificate.

And just in case you need it, here’s the full list of companies that do and don’t test on animals.

Have you voted for North America’s sexiest vegetarian yet? Here's an interview with one of the finalists in Sacramento.

I had heard of this video about the “Bionic Burger” but I had never seen it until today. Gross.

Nancy from LA sent me this amazing story about a cat who must have heard about the Iams recall and took matters into her own hands, err, paws. Nancy said the cat must have decided, "Screw this, I'm going for fish and chips."

Guess which dinosaur is an ancestor to the chicken.

In case you're looking for another reason to go vegetarian . . . bacon may cause lung damage. For real.

Is your rescued dog lonely? Maybe this could help. I don’t even want to think about the cleanup.

Chicken ghost stories.

Andy Dick is funny. Check out his spoof Gap ad.

And finally, here’s a great piece from ABC on our chinchilla ranch investigation.

As always, if you find something cool on the Internet that you think other PETA Files readers would like, be sure to send it to me. Thanks!

After noticing that a female lobster in the tank at the Men’s Club of Reno was pregnant and carrying eggs, the club’s promotions director and lifelong vegetarian, Aquila Nelson, sprang into action. She convinced the club’s manager to let her free the lobster and called us for instructions on what to do. To make a long story short, the lobster has since been released in protected waters in New Hampshire! Check out what Aquila had to say about the ordeal: "I couldn’t bear the thought of this animal and her babies being thrown into a pot of boiling water. Whether they have claws or paws, no animal deserves to be tortured like that." Aquila, you're awesome.