Written by Michelle Kretzer
We do get a little ticked off that some people are still eating animals, but we are not alone: Apparently, so does at least one breed of ticks. Scientists have discovered that the bite of the Lone Star tick causes people to develop an allergy to meat. Once a person has been bitten, if he or she eats meat, things can get a little uncomfortable and a hives-like rash can break out within hours. That gave PETA the germ of an idea, and we'd like your input.
Currently, the ticks are predominantly found in the southeastern United States. But PETA has hatched a plan to release Lone Star ticks in parks in the Northeast, hoping that warming weather and moist conditions will help the ticks thrive. PETA's Don Beleav, a biologist who is investigating the feasibility of the project, explained how the resulting meat allergies will greatly benefit human beings who come into contact with the ticks:
Just as leeches purify the blood, these tiny insects can help people kick a habit that sucks for animals, human health, and the environment," says Beleav. "Obviously, PETA's main goal is to prevent animal suffering, but going vegetarian or vegan helps people lose weight, boosts their immune systems, and lowers their risk of three of our nation's biggest killers—heart disease, cancer, and strokes." Beleav continues, "Really the only pushback we anticipate will be from fast-food companies. Maybe McDonald's will start handing out free flea and tick collars with its value meals!
PETA is also considering offering the bugs by mail for anyone itching to go vegetarian but lacking the willpower to do so.
Written by Jeff Mackey
If you've suffered through having your heart broken (and who hasn't?), you know it feels like you want to die. But if your heart actually were to (physically) break, you really could die. So as Valentine's Day nears, PETA is placing this digital billboard in two locations in Montgomery, Alabama—a state with one of the highest rates of heart disease in the nation.
Why do vegetarian hearts have an edge over carnivorous tickers? A recent study found that vegetarians are 32 percent less likely to suffer from heart disease. In fact, staying away from all the saturated fat and cholesterol in meat, dairy products, and eggs gives vegans a significant advantage in avoiding a range of life-threatening diseases, including cancer, strokes, and diabetes.
And when your healthy heart starts beating in rhythm with that special someone's, it's good to remember that vegans also get a boost in their love life because we're less susceptible to sexual dysfunction. So whether your heart needs Cupid or a cardiologist, there's one prescription: Go vegan!
Written by Alisa Mullins
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley is apparently anxious to show his campaign contributors that he will fight to the death (literally, perhaps) over Americans' right to be sick and fat. Sen. Grassley has attacked the conservative Meatless Monday program, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) was promoting as a way to encourage its staffers to eat healthier and protect the environment. But the USDA has withdrawn the initiative, opting instead to prove that it is the servant of agribusiness and let its employees pay the price. PETA has hit back with a "Meat-Free Mondays Through Sundays" campaign.
The USDA inadvertently set off a firestorm of controversy earlier this week when it promoted the Paul McCartney–endorsed Meatless Monday program on its website. But the move was publicly blasted by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, after which the department yanked the promo, mumbling something about not receiving the proper "clearance," as if encouraging good health and environmental protection were a covert spy mission or something.
Apparently not content with that backpedal, Sen. Grassley, a legislator from a beef-belt state, vowed to "eat more meat on Monday" in an attempt to singlehandedly (forkedly?) make up for the meat that conscientious USDA workers might be planning to forgo on the first day of the workweek.
We're taking bets (place yours in the comments section below) on how long it will take Sen. Grassley to succumb to heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or some other meat-related disease.
"From his reaction, it seems like a pretty safe bet that he's already got high blood pressure," says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "Were he a physician instead of a politician who truly puts his rancher money where his mouth is, he'd be guilty of malpractice."
Don't let fat-cat government lobbyists win—celebrate Meatless Monday every day of the week by ordering a vegetarian/vegan starter kit today!
Martin Cathrae|cc by 2.0
Following a government-appointed panel's recommendation that kids as young as 9 should start being tested for high cholesterol, some doctors are raising objections and expressing concerns that members of the panel may have been swayed by their ties to drug companies.
The good news is that kids—and grown-ups—don't need to take expensive and potentially dangerous drugs to lower their cholesterol. A University of Toronto study showed that people who ate a vegetarian diet high in cholesterol-lowering foods, such as tofu, oats, barley, peas, beans, eggplant, flaxseeds, okra, and almonds, were able to reduce their "bad" cholesterol levels by up to 35 percent.
Each additional 100 milligrams of cholesterol that you consume by eating meat, eggs, or dairy products—the only dietary sources of cholesterol—add roughly five points to your cholesterol level, which increases your risk of a heart attack. By contrast, every time you reduce your cholesterol level by 1 percent, you reduce your risk of a heart attack by 2 percent.
© iStockphoto.com/Pavel Sazonov
If you want to lower your cholesterol without scary side effects, try switching to healthy and humane vegan meals. Find out how easy it is by ordering your free vegetarian/vegan starter kit today.
If you always have a sleepless night after watching a horror movie, you might want to think twice before sitting down to a meal of dead bodies. Here's why meat is more dangerous than an ax-wielding maniac:
If you're still eating fish despite the dangers of mercury, might I suggest that you may also enjoy a summer job at Camp Crystal Lake?
As every randy teenage slasher-flick victim can attest, hormones can be deadly. Hormones in meat can cause all sorts of unsexy conditions, such as "moobs." Which leads me to number three …
Eating meat causes impotence. Given their druthers, I think a lot of men would opt instead for the hockey mask–wearing serial killer.
That's another good reason not to ingest all the saturated fat that meat contains.
Find yourself short of breath when you hear that ominous theme music ("Ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma")? The toxic gasses and bacteria that wind spreads from factory farms make it even more difficult to inhale.
Do you ever shout, "Why are you running into the woods?!" when some moron is being chased by a psycho? People in real life do dumb things that lead to their untimely demise, too, like eating meat, eggs, and dairy products even though bad diets are to blame for one-third of all cancer deaths.
Have you seen PETA's slasher movie that features video footage from chicken farms? If you're too chicken … don't eat chicken.
Heart disease caused by diets high in artery-clogging animal products will do the trick, too.
In Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Voorhees is finally done in by toxic waste in the sewers. If the kids had only gotten him into one of the waterways polluted with factory-farm runoff, he would've been a goner a lot sooner.
Meat's got its own resilient killer: antibiotic-resistant bacteria caused by the overuse of antibiotics on factory farms.
Between meat and dairy products, trying to choose which is more deadly is like trying to decide which serial killer you want to take a weekend getaway with.
Poo. And lots of it. Yeah, it gets in meat, too.
Maybe the worst thing about how deadly meat is, is that we actually have to pay for it—both at the check-out counter and in the form of government subsidies. I mean, at least when Jason is swinging a machete, he's not simultaneously asking for your wallet—am I right?
Slash your risk of getting killed off early by running from meat as if your life depended on it. (But don't go running through the woods. That's never a good idea.)
After learning that New Orleans has been designated one of the most artery-clogging cities in America, PETA has offered to help fight plaque buildup with a pinup ambulance ad:
Nurse: © iStockphoto.com/Pavel Sazonov Ambulance: © iStockphoto.com/Jon Patton
Our ad could certainly help New Orleans residents reduce their risk of heart disease. Their number of fender benders, however, might be on the rise …
There are countless things that we can do that endanger our lives, but there's one thing we can do that can not only help us live longer but also save many more lives at the same time: adopting a vegan diet.
Around 16 billion (that's "billion" with a "b") animals are slaughtered each year to feed Americans, which works out to more than 100 animals per meat-eater in the U.S. But you're smart—you do the math. And then do the smart thing: Go vegan.
Written by PETA
When asked what one food he would ban if he could, PETA's chief medical adviser, Dr. Neal Barnard, responded with three: hot dogs, bacon, and ham. We'll let him tell you why!
In an interview with Forbes magazine, the bestselling author and president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine cited those three processed meats as foods that no one, especially children, should ever eat.
In 2007," he says, "the World Cancer Research Fund and American Institute for Cancer Research released the most comprehensive review on diet and cancer ever published, prepared by the world's leading experts, and it was quite damning about the link between processed meat and colorectal cancer. In early 2011, an update to the report encouraged people to avoid processed meats altogether.
But the disease that's weighing on Dr. Barnard's mind and that has increased threefold in just the last 30 years isn't cancer—it's diabetes. And here again, meat is to blame.
Dr. Barnard notes that the fats that people consume, prevalent in meat, make muscle and liver cells resistant to the action of insulin, triggering diabetes. "The forecast from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is frightening: one in three people born in 2000 will eventually develop the disease," he says. "The medical burden is bad enough—the average person with diabetes loses well over a decade of life."
To read the rest of Dr. Barnard's eye-opening interview, visit Forbes.com. And to find tasty recipes that are 100 percent ham-, bacon-, and hot dog–free, visit our "Living" page.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
When we heard that MGM wanted to demolish the Harmon Tower—its brand-new but structurally unsound hotel and casino in Las Vegas―we had a dynamite idea: Turn the unusable building into a billboard.
We can't think of a better use for a doomed casino than an ad urging people not to gamble with their health, but instead to improve their odds of beating heart disease, diabetes, and other illnesses by going vegan.
What's a lot easier than getting a 21 in blackjack? Getting a healthy body in 21 days with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine’s 21-Day Vegan Kickstart program, beginning September 5.
An elementary school in Denver, Colorado, is giving its students food for thought. To promote healthy eating habits among its students, SOAR has become Colorado's first vegetarian school and earned itself a Compassionate School Award from PETA, for saving the lives of countless animals.
"There is tons of research about plant-based foods preventing disease," said SOAR's head of school, Gianna Cassetta. "[W]e're making a difference in the way people think about food. Hopefully by the time our kids are in fifth grade, they'll be very conscious about what they eat."
And it's working. SOAR lunches are loaded with fruits and vegetables, and even the food students bring from home must adhere to SOAR's guidelines. Parents report that when they are grocery shopping, if something isn't healthy enough to go school, it goes back on the shelf. SOAR is continuing its quest for a new generation of healthy kids with the opening of a second school next year.
To help the kids in your life make the switch to a healthy vegan diet that will help prevent heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and other diseases, visit PETAKids.com/Vegetarian.
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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