‘Tofu Never Caused a Pandemic’ Ad Rises Amid Local Slaughterhouse Shutdown
PETA Urges People to Eat As if Everyone’s Life Depends On It, Because It Does: Meat Comes From Filthy Factory Farms Rife With Disease
For Immediate Release:
May 12, 2020
Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382
As some slaughterhouses across the state shut down over criticism that they have failed to contain outbreaks of COVID-19 among workers, PETA placed a billboard downtown highlighting the meat industry’s link to deadly zoonotic diseases and urging people to help keep slaughterhouses closed, for everyone’s sake, by going vegan.
“With hundreds of thousands of people worldwide dead from a disease linked to slaughtering animals, the time to try tofu and other versatile vegan foods is now,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA stands ready with free vegan starter kits, free mentor services, and free recipes to help people prevent the next pandemic by going vegan.”
PETA notes that U.S. factory farms and slaughterhouses are as filthy as China’s “wet markets,” their floors covered with blood, urine, feces, and offal. Previous influenza viruses have originated in pigs and chickens—but never in vegan foods like tofu, which is cheaper than meat, is packed with protein, contains zero cholesterol, and can lower one’s risk of suffering from heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and many other life-threatening health issues. PETA offers a variety of delicious tofu-based recipes on its website, such as General Tso’s Tofu and Buffalo Tofu-Scramble Breakfast Tacos.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—is also posting the ad in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and New Brunswick, New Jersey.
The billboard is located at the intersection of N. 24th and Cuming streets, facing east and across from a McDonald’s and the Creighton University Medical Center.
Resources on PETA’s website include vegan starter kits and a list of vegan-friendly restaurant chains, many of which are still offering takeout during the pandemic. For more information, please visit PETA.org.
