Kentucky Fried Chicken Sells Death by the Bucket—Here’s What You Can Do

Over a decade ago, when PETA found out about Kentucky Fried Chicken’s plan to peddle its deep-fried death to the black community, we teamed up with the Rev. Al Sharpton, who called for a boycott of Colonel Sanders.

Since then, PETA has achieved major wins against KFC, including the successful boycott of the company’s Canadian branch, which ended when KFCs in that country agreed to some basic animal welfare improvements and added a vegan chicken patty to some menus.

KFC suppliers still abuse birds around the world, and PETA continues to clash with it over the suffering of millions of feeling, intelligent chickens whose body parts are sold by the bucket.

The Worst Food for Humans Coupled With the Worst Conditions for Animals

Sharpton got an eyeful of what happens to animals on factory farms when he narrated PETA’s video exposé of KFC suppliers’ cruel slaughterhouses, where birds sustain broken wings and legs and are often scalded to death in defeathering tanks.

During an awards ceremony in which PETA honored Sharpton for his courageous work against KFC, he said, “I felt that when I saw what was being done, we had an obligation to stand up and do what was right, particularly when a community that has suffered so would become the recipients of victims of suffering.” He went on to say, “No one is too poor to have to eat wrong and have to eat the flesh of those animals that have become victimized.”

Right now, Americans in general, but African-Americans in particular, face a health crisis. According to the American Heart Association, they are disproportionately affected by obesity and are more likely to have diabetes than their white counterparts are. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that African-Americans have nearly double the risk that white Americans have of dying early from heart disease and strokes. Studies show that eating vegan is the best way to reduce the risk for—and even reverse, in some cases—some of the nation’s leading killers, such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

In addition to contributing to the deaths of humans, chickens on farms are maliciously abused, including having their throats cut while they’re still conscious and being drugged and bred to grow so large that they become crippled under their own weight.

Let’s End the Cruelty

Chickens are arguably the most abused animals on the planet. The best thing that you can do for them—and for yourself, too—is to stop eating them. Inform your friends and family about the many problems with raising chickens for food. As the demand for vegan fare skyrockets, companies are developing more and more delicious cruelty-free foods that are much healthier to eat than animal flesh and don’t hurt any living, feeling beings.

Stand with PETA and urge KFC to get with the times and start serving healthier, humane vegan chicken.