Written by PETA
Everyone who tuned in to PBS last night for the premiere of My Life as a Turkey was treated to a fascinating glimpse into the lives of animals who are often seen as little more than Thanksgiving centerpieces. The film follows Joe Hutto as he raises 16 turkeys, left on his porch as eggs, from hatchlings to adulthood.
Watching the turkeys form an intense bond with their "mother," Joe, and seeing them grow, learn, and interact would make the staunchest carnivore think twice about calling these sensitive, intelligent birds "dinner."
Watch My Life as a Turkey and click here to enter to win the DVD and the book that inspired it. And check out PETA's recipes for a turkey-friendly Thanksgiving smorgasbord on our Living page.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
Alarming new findings from Britain's Health Protection Agency reveal that many people could still be infected with, and eventually die from, mad cow disease. In humans, it is referred to as "new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease," or vCJD. As leading vCJD expert Professor John Collinge notes, "The incubation period, where there are no symptoms, can last for decades."
But that's Great Britain, not the U.S., right? Well, we're potentially at an even higher risk because while Europe banned the macabre farming practice that is believed to have caused mad cow disease—feeding ground-up farmed animals to other farmed animals—it is still legal in the United States. And while England tests every cow slaughtered for the presence of the disease, the U.S. tests only a small percentage.
The symptoms of vCJD are so similar to those of dementia or Alzheimer's that there is some indication that a large number of Americans may have been misdiagnosed.
Obviously we can't un-eat meat we ate in the past that may have contained the indestructible prions that cause mad cow disease, although British scientists are working on a blood test that can check for the disease. But what we can do is reduce our risk of future infection by quitting hamburgers and steaks, ahem, cold turkey.
But if you're thinking that eating cold turkey or another meat would be better, don't be fooled—you still run the risk of all those other diseases that any kind of meat consumption contributes to, including heart disease, diabetes, and even cancer.
Continuing to eat meat despite the mounting evidence that it will hurt us in one way or another seems pretty mad, right?
PETA first ran a billboard connecting meat consumption and Alzheimer's after former President Ronald Reagan died of the disease. Now, in recognition of Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month, PETA has created a new billboard to spread awareness about the link between eating more plant foods and Alzheimer's prevention.
Red pepper: © iStockphoto.com/subjug • Glasses: © iStockphoto.com/zlmrdm
According to the Alzheimer's Association, diets high in cholesterol and saturated fat may increase a person's risk of Alzheimer's. Since saturated fats are found primarily in animal-derived foods and dietary cholesterol is found only in foods of animal origin, eating a healthy, plant-based diet may lower the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. The American Dietetic Association has also stated that vegetarians and vegans have a lower risk of developing heart disease, lower blood cholesterol levels, lower rates of hypertension (high blood pressure) and type 2 diabetes, and lower body-mass indexes than meat-eaters. Every single one of these is linked to Alzheimer's.
If you haven't already, consider adopting a vegan diet to help ward off Alzheimer's and other diseases. A vegan diet also saves more than 100 animals a year from facing the horrors of fishing nets, factory farms, and slaughterhouses.
Written by Heather Faraid Drennan
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.
Keen to try some roasted puppy leg or a freshly carved puppy breast? A new billboard PETA is trying to place outside public schools across the country ahead of Thanksgiving should certainly give children and their parents not only the shivers but also some important food for thought:
Turkey: © iStockphoto.com/James Steidl • Dog: © iStockphoto.com/Eric Isselée
Turkeys are gentle, inquisitive animals who enjoy music and like to have their feathers stroked, but turkeys raised for food are kept in crowded, dark sheds where the ammonia from their accumulated waste burns their skin. At slaughterhouses, turkeys are slammed upside down into shackles and dragged through electrified water. Many birds have their throats slit while they're still conscious and able to feel pain.
Stuffing kids (or anyone) with turkey is also bad for their health: In addition to artery-clogging fat and cholesterol, they also could be gobbling up arsenic, which is used to combat disease on filthy factory farms. Other dangers of eating turkey include contracting listeria, salmonella, or campylobacter bacteria, which cause millions of cases of food-borne illness each year.
Kids can learn more about how to "love animals, not eat them" at the PETA Kids or peta2 websites. Adults who want to quit cruelty cold turkey this Thanksgiving can check out Gardein's delicious vegan holiday recipes and enter to win a free vegan Gardein Savory Stuffed Turk'y on our Living page.
CSI star Jorja Fox thinks that everyone should play detective and investigate how animals are killed for food. Jorja unveiled her pro-vegetarian PETA ad to an enthusiastic crowd Sunday at Fort Lauderdale's gourmet vegan restaurant, Sublime, which is owned by PETA member and activist extraordinaire Nanci Alexander.
Jorja even got things cooking in the kitchen, helping the chefs with the evening's delicious cruelty-free feast, which included spicy Singapore street noodles, "chicken" picatta, and gourmet pizzas topped with Thai peanut sauce, vegan caviar, homemade barbecue sauce, and other exotic toppings.
Fox went vegetarian years ago—halfway through a sandwich. "I was having a meatball sub one day in Brooklyn, and it just clicked," she explains. "I was in the middle of that sandwich, and I put it down, and I never had meat again."
CSI fans: Follow Jorja's advice and do some sleuthing into the meat industry by clicking here.
Who shot J.R.? Currently, TNT is shooting the Dallas patriarch for the reincarnation of the show coming next summer. And Larry Hagman is having a reincarnation of his own off the set: Switching to a vegetarian diet is helping him fight cancer.
Bob Barker and Jorja Fox are waging a fight of their own—for the elephants, tigers, and lions who are forced to spend a lifetime in chains just so that people can have a few minutes of "entertainment." The pair traveled to Washington, D.C., to ask congressional representatives to support the Traveling Exotic Animal Protection Act, which would bar circuses from using wild animals.
The Toronto Maple Leafs' Mike Zigomanis might call himself a lover, not a fighter. The decorated Most Gentlemanly Player takes his thoughtfulness to the kitchen, too, where he whips up amazing vegan smorgasbords that make us nonchefs feel as inferior as his opponents do on the ice.
The lovely Sasha Grey scored a goal: she just adopted a furry new companion, her rescued dog, MacReady.
You'll find no fur on Placebo drummer Steve Forrest, who stars in a new anti-fur ad for PETA U.K.:
Photo: © Kayla Wren
Fellow fur foe Leona Lewis is launching her own Project Runway of sorts, offering aspiring designers a chance to create an outfit that she will wear on tour and be photographed in. And she has specified that the designers must "make it work" without harming any animals—Leona only wears cruelty-free fashion.
Just how greedy are pork producers? The National Meat Association (NMA) is challenging a California law that requires the euthanasia of pigs who are too weak or sick to stand when they arrive at slaughterhouses. A lawyer representing the NMA noted that this means that many slaughterhouses would have to euthanize up to 300 pigs every single day—a "financial impact" that the pork industry apparently is not willing to take lying down.
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider the case next week in order to decide whether states have the authority to implement laws like this one governing slaughterhouses. If the justices rule in favor of California, the case could set a precedent that would encourage more states to enact broader animal welfare laws for pigs and other animals.
Does the meat industry need to be required by law to do the right thing? You bet it does. Downed animals are often dragged, prodded, or bulldozed into the slaughterhouse. PETA's investigations at pig factory farms have shown that workers beat, kick, and bludgeon sick or injured animals with gate rods and hammers and slam them against concrete floors. A PETA undercover investigator at a Hormel supplier's pig-breeding factory farm in Iowa saw a supervisor kick an injured pig as she dragged herself out of a crate and a worker laugh as the supervisor shot her in the head with a captive-bolt gun.
Don't wait for the courts to do the right thing. Rule in animals' favor today by adopting a healthy vegan diet and encouraging everyone you know to do the same.
Even if you're not an avid baseball fan, you've probably heard of Tony La Russa, one of the greatest managers of all time, who made headlines this week by announcing his retirement right after steering the St. Louis Cardinals to their dramatic victory in this year's World Series. La Russa is also an all-star for animals who is a longtime vegetarian and PETA supporter, as well as the founder of his own animal protection group, the Animal Rescue Foundation.
La Russa has been defending animals for decades. When seedy Las Vegas showman Bobby Berosini was caught on tape beating orangutans with bars and punching them in the face in 1989, La Russa flew to Vegas with other sympathetic celebrities to condemn the abuse. After his case wound through the courts for years, Berosini was ultimately forced to pay PETA $400,000 in court costs and relinquished custody of the orangutans.
La Russa also led PETA supporters in a "fur funeral" outside the Seattle Fur Exchange to bring attention to the fact that animals on fur farms are kept in cramped, filthy cages and are killed by genital electrocution. In the "eulogy" that he delivered, La Russa stated, "Fur is something to be ashamed of." He also starred in a PETA ad against American Express when the credit card giant was selling fur in its catalog (the company eventually bowed to pressure and pulled the pelts).
We congratulate Tony La Russa on a long and successful career and wish him the best in his retirement!
Many of Sarah-Jane Honeywell's fans—the children who know her as the presenter of two British kids' TV shows—might not have recognized her earlier this week when she was nearly naked and lying on a plate.
Honeywell stripped off the bright, hip clothes she normally wears to ask people young and old alike to understand that the meat on their plates came from living, thinking, feeling beings. "Going vegan is the best decision I've ever made," she said. "I have tons of energy, and I know that I'm not contributing to animal suffering."
Still not convinced that the meat in front of you is a "who," not a "what"? Watch PETA's Glass Walls video, narrated by another famous Brit, Sir Paul McCartney, before deciding if you can look your cat or dog in the eye while eating someone who is just as capable of experiencing joy and sadness.
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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