Lenten Fish Fry … Hosted by PETA?

It Was Vegan, of Course! PETA’s Christian Outreach Division Sponsored Faux-Fish Twist on Traditional Friday Meal

For Immediate Release:
March 23, 2020

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

With Lent in full swing, PETA’s Christian outreach division, LAMBS (which stands for “Least Among My Brothers and Sisters” from Matthew 25:40), hosted a free Lenten vegan fish fry dinner. The meal was whipped up by popular local restaurant The Taphouse Grill, which is located near PETA’s headquarters, and offered “to go” from the restaurant’s patio or even delivered to diners’ cars. The special dinner included three flaky, tempura-battered faux-fish filets, plus vegan tartar sauce, coleslaw, and French fries.

One diner wrote on Facebook, “The food was delicious …. Thank you! Your service and kindness [were] not unnoticed.” Another wrote to PETA, saying, “It tastes just like the real thing,” and said that her two children exclaimed, “It’s good!”—she even added on Facebook, “Vegan can be delishhhhhhh.” And after one diner reported having just lost her employment benefits, LAMBS provided her with several extra meals to enjoy in the coming days.

“All animals, including fish, feel pain and fear and value their lives, just as humans do, so it’s a blessing to leave them off the plate, even for one meal,” says PETA Vice President Daniel Paden. “PETA and LAMBS are showing believers how easy it is to show mercy to all of God’s creation, simply by choosing delicious vegan fare.”

On Fridays during Lent, Catholics abstain from eating meat—but because many Catholics and other Christians don’t consider fish flesh to be meat, countless parishes and organizations sell fish dinners on these days. LAMBS points out that fish killed for food slowly suffocate or are crushed to death when they’re dragged out of the oceans and that the throats and abdomens of those who survive are cut open on the decks of fishing boats. Numerous studies confirm that fish have personalities, can recognize human faces, retain memories, think ahead, and experience terrible death before ending up on humans’ dinner tables.

LAMBS—whose motto, in a twist on PETA’s, is “Animals are not ours. They’re God’s”—holds that being made in the image of God is a call to show compassion and mercy, not dominance and violence. For more information, please visit PETALambs.com.