Rodrigo y Gabriela Promote a Vegan Lifestyle

Musical duo Rodrigo y Gabriela take time out from strumming their addictive, acoustic guitar sets to star in a PETA campaign promoting a vegan lifestyle. These compassionate rockers draw the comparison between human rights and animal rights and denounce cruelty to any species.

Rodrigo explains, “I consider animal rights very linked to human rights and to environmental rights. For me it’s just one issue.” By enjoying a plant-based diet, you can help prevent cruelty to animals, improve your health, and protect our planet. The official handbook for the Live Earth concerts says that “refusing meat” is the “single most effective thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint.”

Cows, pigs, chickens, fish, and other animals killed for food suffer greatly on factory farms, where they are confined to filthy, cramped pens and cages, are routinely abused, and are fed drugs to fatten them faster and to keep them alive in conditions that would otherwise kill them. They are then slaughtered via excruciatingly painful methods, such as being cut apart or having their throats cut while they are still conscious and able to feel pain. Cows used for dairy live in their own waste, are forcibly impregnated over and over, and are hooked up to milking machines several times a day. They’re also fed drugs and hormones in an effort to create as much milk as possible. Cows on dairy farms often go lame and become ill—they typically live about four to five years, even though their natural lifespan is about 25 years.

Going vegan saves the lives of more than 100 animals a year from a life of misery and the most painful death imaginable. Check out PETA’s vegetarian/vegan starter kit for recipes, tips and more information to help you make the transition to a cruelty-free diet.

Sign the pledge to try a vegan diet, and check out these yummy recipes and this handy shopping guide to get you started. Do something good for yourself, for the planet, and for animals. Pledge to be vegan now!