Over the last 2 days I told you about the organization PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – and their awards for the sexiest vegetarian female and male over 50.
These two awards were pretty tame and sedate events by PETA standards. Most of the time they tend to be much more provocative – they have a way of getting the organization’s name in the news in ways that are edgy and aimed at pushing the envelope to the utmost.
Their agenda is simple: stop the brutal treatment of animals, and eat a meat-free diet, or a less-meat diet.
This latter part of their agenda is something I’ve been stressing in this series on meat, as I’ve pointed out that a diet that is heavy on meat is detrimental to health and well-being, and is not conducive towards living a Low Density Lifestyle.
For the fun of it, I want to tell you about three of PETA’s more provocative ways of getting their point across. Call it The PETA Hijinks.
1) is an ad that PETA proposed to have shown on TV during a recent Super Bowl. The people behind the Super Bowl said no way, Jose – they weren’t ready for an ad that proclaimed that vegetarians have better sex. You can see the video at the top of the page.
2) PETA recently offered the city of Topeka, Kansas $6,000 to fill
potholes in city streets and mark the repairs with messages condemning Kentucky Fried Chicken. PETA claims the restaurant chain treats its chickens inhumanely. The $6,000 was double what KFC offered to pay to fill the potholes in the city’s streets.
Topeka’s Mayor, Bill Bunten, refused PETA’s offer, so PETA made a counteroffer: The new offer would pay Topeka $6,000 to place an ad featuring a woman in a lettuce-leaf bikini with the tagline “Vegetarians Do It to Save the Planet. Meat Trashes the Planet. Be Green-Go Veg.” on city recycling trucks.
“If we can’t educate people about KFC’s cruelty to chickens, we’d be happy to let them know how their food choices can save the planet,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “The mayor may be afraid of ruffling KFC’s feathers, but where’s the harm in encouraging Topeka residents to adopt a healthy, humane, and Earth-friendly vegetarian diet?”
The mayor has yet to decide whether to accept the offer.
3) Scotland has the second highest obesity rate in the world (the U.S. has the dubious distinction of being number one). In the city of Glasgow, Scotland, PETA has started a new, and outrageous, advertising campaign.
“Lose the breasts. Go vegetarian” is PETA’s message, and it is a campaign aimed at men, with a giant billboard linking meat-eating with man boobs.
Posted outside a hospital in Glasgow, it shows a protuberant, hairy chest accompanied by the caption: “Dude Looks like a Lady? Lose the breasts. Go vegetarian.”
The campaign claims “meat-eating is forcing many men to get in touch with their feminine side” and bases the claim on a statement attributed to a Scottish surgeon that obesity problems are fueling the demand for breast-reduction surgery in men.
Glasgow was chosen, PETA maintains, “Because since 2007 Scotland has seen an astounding 80% rise in the number of surgeries performed to address gynecomastia – excessive breast development in men.”
The campaign group added: “The advertisement was designed to warn meat-eaters that obesity – which can be caused by a steady diet of animal-derived foods – is linked to the increase in gynecomastia.”
Meat-eaters, PETA contends, are nine times as likely to be obese as vegans. “According to Ken Stewart, a surgeon at Spire Murrayfield hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland’s obesity problem is fueling the demand for breast-reduction surgery in men,” said the group.
“Unwanted breast development in men illustrates that there’s nothing manly about meat and milk,” says PETA’s director of special projects, Poorva Joshipura. “Cruelty to animals, environmental degradation and a host of meat and dairy-related diseases are reasons enough to go vegetarian, but male breast growth is a good reason too.”
The picture, not digitally enhanced, is of a real man’s chest.
All I can say is: Wow!