Pig on a Bus Pushes Heartfelt Plea for Valentine’s Day: Skip the Bacon, Please!

For Immediate Release:
February 9, 2022

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

“Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.” That’s the message this little piggy has for diners as she appears in PETA’s new pink bus ads spreading food for thought across the city about what—or whom—to eat or not to eat on Valentine’s Day.

“Everyone loves pig posters and pig gifs, and now, thanks to the abundance of hearty vegan bacon and ham, everyone can show love to pigs themselves this Valentine’s Day,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “The internet and PETA’s website are packed with delicious recipes and tips to help everyone show affection for—and kindness to—animals on this special holiday and every day.”

In today’s meat industry, nothing is gentle: Mother pigs are squeezed into narrow metal stalls barely larger than their bodies and kept almost constantly pregnant or nursing. Piglets’ tails are chopped off, their teeth are pulled out with pliers, and males are castrated—all without any pain relief. At the slaughterhouse, they’re hung upside down—sometimes while still conscious—and bled to death.

Consumers’ demand for vegan food out of concern for animals, the environment, and their health has the vegan food market skyrocketing: It grew two and a half times faster in 2021 than between 2018 and 2020 and is predicted to reach $22 billion by 2025. Many purveyors of pork, including Hormel, Smithfield, and Jimmy Dean, are quickly diversifying into vegan meat production.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—offers free vegan starter kits, dessert recipes that are perfect for Valentine’s Day, and a roundup of delicious vegan bacon brands on its website.

For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.