Drop the Bologna: PETA Offers Vegan Meat for New Year’s Bologna Drop

For Immediate Release:
December 4, 2023

Contact:
Brittney Williams 202-483-7382

Ahead of New Year’s Eve, PETA sent a letter to Greg Bracale, the chair of the Community of Lebanon Association, A Lebanon Foundation Organization, urging him to upgrade his group’s annual Bologna Drop to a vegan event and offering to provide the delicious vegan meats free of charge. PETA points out that dropping vegan bologna would still honor tradition but update the event for the 21^st century, as vegan meats aren’t cruelly produced, are lower in saturated fat and cholesterol, and are far more sustainable than meat made from animals.

“Grinding up smart, sensitive, and social cows for a piece of meat dangling from a disco ball is a load of bologna,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “By switching to animal-friendly vegan bologna, Lebanon can turn its New Year’s Eve drop into a celebration everyone can groove to.”

Prior to slaughter, cows are shipped to feces- and mud-filled feedlots, where they’re crammed together by the thousands in all weather extremes. At slaughterhouses, workers shoot cows in the head with a captive-bolt gun, hang them up by one leg, and cut their throats—often while they’re still conscious. Each person who goes vegan saves nearly 200 animals every year; reduces their risk of suffering from cancer, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and obesity; and dramatically shrinks their carbon footprint.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview, and offers a free vegan starter kit on its website. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.

PETA’s letter to Bracale follows.

December 4, 2023

Greg Bracale

Chair

Community of Lebanon Association

Dear Mr. Bracale:

Greetings! I’m writing on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—PETA entities have more than 9 million members and supporters globally, and PETA U.S. is the largest animal rights organization in the world. Given that bologna is a processed meat that’s bad for animals, the planet, and our arteries—as well as implicated in the risk of developing cancer—will you please celebrate the new year by upgrading to vegan bologna for the next Lebanon Bologna Drop? PETA would be happy to supply vegan vittles free of charge—that’s no load of bologna—and help promote the new, inclusive, animal-friendly event to our members and supporters in the area.

Cows are gentle, curious, and clever animals, but bits of their bodies end up in bologna. To become the bologna dangling from a disco ball, these sensitive beings are shipped to filthy feedlots, where they’re crammed together by the thousands in all weather extremes. They’re then packed onto trucks for a frightening journey to a slaughterhouse, where they face a cruel and painful death. Many government slaughterhouse inspectors refuse to eat meat after witnessing these awful conditions.

Raising animals to eat is now recognized as an environmental calamity, as it requires colossal amounts of land, food, energy, and water. A comprehensive study concluded that vegan eating is the “single biggest way” to reduce a person’s environmental impact, shrinking carbon footprints by up to 73%. And since eating vegan foods reduces deforestation and loss of biodiversity, vegan bologna is the sustainable star that the Lebanon Bologna Drop deserves.

This New Year’s Eve, we hope two vegan bolognas descend on the disco ball—not just as a boogie to tradition but as a hustle toward progress. Thank you for your time and consideration. May your celebration be filled with joy, compassion, and a touch of mirror-ball magic.

We eagerly await your response.

Sincerely,

Tracy Reiman

Executive Vice President