Written by Jeff Mackey
Washington resident Alba Suarez—a parent, nurse, former teacher, and PETA member—has sent a letter to the head of the state's PTA regarding its announced partnership with McDonald's to "promote healthy eating for kids."
No, this isn't a belated April Fool's joke.
Suarez's letter asks the group to shelve the partnership since it sends the message that the PTA endorses the fast-food giant's fat-, cholesterol-, and sugar-laden foods—the type of foods linked to diabetes, heart disease, and the childhood-obesity epidemic—not to mention the cruel factory-farming practices used by McDonald's suppliers. As Suarez explains in her letter, "Despite the revenue from the partnership, I urge you to consider its true long-term cost—the promotion of unhealthy and inhumanely produced foods to our children."
How You Can Help
Our children deserve better than to be sold (and sold out for) harmful animal products. Please join Alba Suarez and PETA in asking the Washington State PTA to drop its partnership with McDonald's, and be sure to start your own kids on a lifetime of good health and compassionate action by choosing vegan foods for your family.
Written by Ingrid E. Newkirk
Many PETA members have contacted us to ask whether they should support so-called "humane" meat. It's a question that we all should be asking because this issue is very important—particularly for the billions of animals who are killed for our plates every year.
If you look around, society is at a turning point. Everyone from the NFL's Arian Foster to Bill Clinton to Anne Hathaway is talking about how going vegan boosts one's energy and keeps one looking slim and healthy. Grocery stores are packed with tasty vegan foods, from faux meats such as vegan chicken and ribs to dairy-free products such as rice milk ice cream and vegan cheese! It's no longer a chore to ask for a vegan meal in restaurants, including steakhouses, and there are now vegan options at schools across the country. Some universities even have all-vegan cafeterias.
Now, more than ever before, it is time to be kind to animals by not paying someone else to slaughter them—something that happens even on so-called "humane" farms.
PETA has pushed hard and will continue to push hard to reduce the sum total of suffering in the meat, dairy, and egg industries—because that makes a huge difference if you are a pig or a chicken on a factory farm. We've stopped PETA protests outside Burger King or McDonald's restaurants when those companies agreed to reforms, but that doesn't mean that we would ever suggest eating meat from Burger King or anywhere else—because we know that massive suffering still goes into every bite. Yes, it's better to pay extra for an egg from a chicken who had a marginally less hideous life than one who suffered more, but we must do better by animals. In fact, we have yet to find a "humane" factory farm where animals don't have their tails cut off and their ears painfully notched, where they aren't debeaked, dehorned, or castrated without anesthesia, where they aren't kept in crowded conditions without sunlight or fresh air, where they don't have their beloved children taken away from them, where they aren't denied the companionship of others, where they aren't sent to a feedlot, or where they are instantly dispatched without the trauma of capture, the horror of transportation, or the terror of seeing other animals killed before suffering the same fate.
PETA has pushed for vegan living since our inception in 1980. Our motto is: "Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way." With so many vegan cookbooks and meal options available and with programs like the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine's 21-Day Vegan Kickstart and our wildly popular vegan starter kit, we can all help animals—and not miss a thing. Let's live and let live, and tell others to come along with us, reminding them that animals have emotions and needs just as human beings do.
There is no such thing as humane meat. Giving animals a few more inches of living space is simply not enough. Animals deserve more. The momentum is on our side, but it will take every one of us to bring this change about by being active advocates of animal rights. Thank you!
Kind regards,
Ingrid E. Newkirk
President
Meet Feel Ideal. Practically every day that weather permits, he can be found outside his local McDonald's in Honolulu handing out leaflets explaining how chickens killed for the fast-food giant suffer and how the company—as one of the biggest sellers of chicken meat—could reduce this abuse by requiring its suppliers to switch to a more humane slaughter method.
It wouldn't be a proper protest without a poster, and Feel Ideal gave his a uniquely Hawaiian twist. Yes, it's the world's first McCruelty body board!
There's an important lesson to be learned from Mr. Ideal: You don't have to wait for a large organized demonstration to speak out against McCruelty (or any other kind of cruelty). You can make a huge statement all by yourself. And when you do, you're not really alone—PETA's got your back. Join the PETA Action Team to work together toward a kinder world for everyone.
Written by Michelle Kretzer
It sounds like the plot of a Disney movie, but this video of a pig and dog who are best buds would warm even Walt's cryogenically frozen heart.
"Don't mind me." After committing the most adorable case of breaking and entering ever, a baby seal curled up on a New Zealand woman's couch for a nap.
Can you do a good "fish face"? These people are spot-on. … Or are the fish doing a spot-on "human face"?
Would you like an awkward conversation about the facts of life with that? A 7-year-old girl and her mother allegedly discovered a condom in the child's McDonald's Happy Meal.
Talk about a return on your investment: Eight years after she went missing, a dog is going home to her family, thanks to a tiny, inexpensive microchip.
And a chicken named Liberty, dubbed Britain's "last battery hen" is headed home too. She will enjoy retirement on a farm with other hens who were formerly confined to battery cages as the U.K.'s ban on the cruel confinement system goes into effect for the new year.
Written by PETA
McDonald's has kicked its PR machine into high gear after a terrific undercover investigation by Mercy for Animals at Sparboe Farms, one of McDonald's primary egg suppliers, revealed that workers grabbed hens by the throat and slammed them into cages, that an employee swung a hen by her feet, that male chicks were tossed into plastic bags to suffocate, that rotting corpses of hens were left in cages with live birds, and other horrendous abuses.
In response, McDonald's announced that it will stop buying eggs from Sparboe Farms. Hang on, though—don't let McDonald's PR move lead you to believe that this will make a real difference for animals. We've seen it before. What Mercy for Animals uncovered is business as usual for factory farms, as countless PETA investigations, even of other McDonald's suppliers, have shown.
One example: A 2007 PETA investigation of a Union City, Tennessee, slaughterhouse that supplies McDonald's with much of its chicken flesh revealed that employees yanked birds out of shackles so aggressively that they broke the birds' legs, amused themselves by forcing as many as six chickens into a shackle that was designed for one bird, and forcefully slammed chickens against shackles. The electrified water bath that is supposed to stun chickens before their throats are cut was not working for two days, and slaughterhouse operators knowingly allowed tens of thousands of chickens to have their throats slit while the birds were still conscious.
It isn't good enough for McDonald's to simply switch to buying eggs from another lousy supplier with no stricter standards of "care" than the previous cruel supplier. On filthy, intensive-confinement farms—which describes every one of McDonald's and KFC's suppliers—hens are crammed into feces-filled wire cages with less space than a sheet of paper for each bird, and chicks' beaks are burned off without painkillers.
What consumers must demand are meaningful reforms and an end to the worst abuses suffered by the chickens killed for McDonald's and KFC. Here's one way to help chickens: Encourage the chains to switch to a less-cruel slaughter method called "controlled-atmosphere killing" (CAK). All the abuses that chickens suffer in slaughterhouses would be eliminated if McDonald's required its suppliers to switch to CAK, because with CAK, the birds are dead before they are shackled, bled, and scalded in defeathering tanks. Yet McDonald's and KFC have dragged their feet for years instead of switching methods, even though CAK is approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and even though McDonald's European suppliers adopted this method years ago.
Buyer beware: If you eat at McDonald's or KFC, you're eating food created via extreme cruelty to animals. Please boycott these companies and click here to tell them that you're not lovin' their chicken abuse.
Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post
Tired of going through racks of Halloween costumes and seeing the same old hockey masks and sexy nurse uniforms? Here are six scary DIY costumes guaranteed to make the most fearless revelers do a double-take—and then think twice about eating meat, wearing fur, or going to the circus.
Steal an idea from PETA Vice President Dan Mathews and go as KFC's purveyor of live-chicken scalding, Colonel Sanders.
Instantly transform into bunny butcher Donna Karan by carrying some plush rabbits drenched in red paint. To complete the ensemble, lie all night about how you don't really use fur even while you're holding the evidence.
Clowns are scary to a lot of people, and Ronald McDonald is one of the scariest of all. Follow in Andy Dick's footsteps and wave around a bloody knife as you illustrate how a chicken becomes a McNugget. (Hint: It's a lot more cruel than it has to be because McDonald's refuses to implement a less cruel slaughter method for chickens.)
If you want the theme to your outfit to be "cold as ice," be a Canadian seal clubber. A plush seal, a club, and a red-stained shirt will have anyone with a heartbeat running and screaming for points south of the Great White North.
If splashy is more your style, don a top hat and tails or a tight Lycra jumpsuit and you can be a Ringling Bros. animal trainer abuser. It works best if accessorized with a bullhook and paired with a partner dressed as a helpless baby elephant.
For women who want to show that fur is a bad asset, pair a Sasquatch suit with two strategically placed pillows and a diva attitude to become Jennifer Lopez. Be sure to brag about how you burn through animals like you burn through husbands.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
When pop sensation Ke$ha learned that McDonald's McCruelty is spending more than $1 billion on renovating its restaurants while still refusing to require its suppliers to upgrade to a less cruel method of slaughtering chickens, she fired off a letter to McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner calling out the company for its "Sleazy" behavior. The singer is even putting her money where her mouth is by offering McDonald's cash to help with the transition to a more humane slaughter system: "I may not have the $ that the Golden Arches has to throw around, but I'd be glad to lend a hand in helping bring your suppliers' slaughter practices into the 21st century."
The social, inquisitive chickens killed for McNuggets have their throats cut, many have their legs and wings broken, and many are dunked into the scalding-hot water of defeathering tanks while still conscious.. Meanwhile, Skinner and McDonald's continue to ignore the recommendation of the company's own animal welfare panel, which has endorsed a slaughter method that renders the birds unconscious at the start of the slaughtering process. This method, which has been approved the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is already in use by McDonald's suppliers in Europe, so there's no excuse for allowing American suppliers to continue with such cruelty.
Tell McDonald's to require American suppliers to switch to the less cruel slaughter method. As Ke$ha might say, "TiK ToK," the switch can't come a moment too soon for chickens.
Written by Heather Faraid Drennan
It was just another evening in Hollywood—the sun was sinking in a gold-and-orange blaze, throngs of tourists were posing for photos on the Walk of Fame, and some of my PETA colleagues and I gathered to spread the message that McDonald's suppliers mutilate conscious chickens.
Although a couple of teenagers who hovered around Ozzy Osbourne's star assured me that they could beat up anyone who gave us any trouble, most of the more than 300 passersby who took our leaflets were sympathetic. In fact, even the bus passengers wanted our leaflets—a convenient bus stop provided the opportunity for a certain enthusiastic (and tall) staffer to hand leaflets through the bus windows.
You can help by telling McDonald's to require its suppliers to use a less cruel chicken-slaughter method, lest the stretch of sidewalk in front of this Hollywood location give new meaning to "Walk of Shame."
Ryan Gosling has certainly earned his cape this month. First, he broke up a street fight in Manhattan. Then, the Academy Award-nominated actor leapt to the defense of chickens and turkeys on factory farms. Gosling wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on PETA's behalf calling on the agency to revoke its approval of a foam-based extermination method that kills birds by submerging them in foam to slowly suffocate them. This process can take up to 15 minutes and is as traumatic and panic-inducing as killing birds by choking them, strangling them, smothering them, or burying them alive.
"If dogs and cats were killed in this way, the person committing these acts would be charged with cruelty to animals," Gosling wrote. He went on to urge the USDA to put its stamp of approval on a less cruel alternative that uses carbon dioxide to painlessly render birds unconscious and that has already been approved by veterinary experts.
This isn't the first time that Gosling has flexed his impressive muscles in birds' behalf. He previously wrote to KFC and McDonald's urging the fast-food chains to adopt PETA's proposed animal welfare reforms.
We just love a guy who has such a drive to stick up for chicks. You can be a hero for animals, too—don't patronize McDonald's or KFC.
Written by Alisa Mullins
PETA wishes a very happy 60th birthday to rock legend Chrissie Hynde, who, when she isn't using her beautiful voice to sing platinum hits, uses it to stop cruelty to animals. From opening her vegan restaurant, VegiTerranean, to having her hit song "I'll Stand by You" featured in a heartbreaking public service announcement, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has spent decades advocating for animals. Chrissie's actions for animals are too numerous to list, but here are our six favorites:
We know that animals would agree with us, Chrissie—you rock!
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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