Chicken on Billboard Challenges Popeyes Diners
For Immediate Release:
March 8, 2021
Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382
On a billboard reading, “I Want You to Change,” a chicken stares down at diners entering—or considering entering—a local Popeyes restaurant, challenging them to think twice before ordering a fried chicken dinner and appealing to them to choose vegan options instead.
“We aren’t ignorant about chickens anymore, so it’s time to stop eating them and remember that they love their families, form complex social structures, and dream at night, just as humans do,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “The cartoon character Popeye knew that spinach makes you strong, while meat clogs the arteries to the heart, and having a heart is what this is all about.”
As PETA reveals in its “Chicken in Reverse” video, birds killed for their flesh are crammed by the tens of thousands into filthy sheds and many are scalded to death in defeathering tanks. Each person who goes vegan reduces their risk of suffering from health problems like heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and various types of cancer and just might help prevent future pandemics that could originate in meat markets and on crowded factory farms. SARS, swine flu, bird flu, and COVID-19 all stemmed from confining and killing animals for food.
PETA notes that other major restaurants and fast-food chains, including Denny’s, Dunkin’, Carl’s Jr., and Del Taco, have added vegan meat to their menus, leaving Popeyes in the dust. For tips on eating vegan at home or when dining out, the group offers a vegan starter kit.
PETA’s billboard is located at 1146 MacArthur Rd.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
