Turkey’s Desperate Holiday Plea to Kind Kids: ‘I’m ME, Not MEAT!’
New PETA Billboard Will Encourage Youngsters in Major Turkey-Producing State to Talk to Their Parents About Not Eating Animals
For Immediate Release:
December 4, 2017
Contact:
Audrey Shircliff 202-483-7382
Just in time for the holidays—and because South Carolina is the eighth top turkey-producing state and has the 12th highest obesity rate—PETA is serving up food for thought via a new billboard that just went up near several local elementary schools. The ad shows a turkey’s face alongside the words “I’m ME, Not MEAT. Kids: Ask Your Parents About Going Vegan This Holiday Season.”
The billboard is located on Ashley Phosphate Road, between Palmetto Commerce Parkway and Southrail Road, near Cathedral Academy and Pinehurst, Pepperhill, and Hanahan elementary schools.
“Children have a natural empathy for animals, so they’d be horrified to learn that gentle turkeys are babies themselves when they’re strung upside down and slaughtered,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “This holiday season, PETA is calling on children and their parents to choose healthy and delicious vegan meals that keep cruelty off the table.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that in nature, turkeys are loving parents and spirited explorers who can live up to 10 years but those raised for food are normally slaughtered when they’re between 12 and 26 weeks old. The young birds are hung by their feet from metal shackles and dragged through an electrified bath that can cause them to have full-body tremors. They’re often still conscious when their throats are slit and they’re dumped into a bath of scalding-hot water to remove their feathers.
Most turkey flesh is contaminated with the antibiotics given to the animals in order to keep them alive in filthy, feces-filled sheds. And eating meat has been linked to an increased risk of suffering from cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.
PETA offers a free vegan holiday guide (available here) full of recipes, tips, and more. For more information, please visit PETA.org.
