Eye-Catching ‘Hold the Cheese’ Billboard Aims to Trim Down Nation’s Second-Fattest City

PETA’s ‘Dairy-Free Damsels’ to Hand Out Free ‘Cheesy’ Vegan Snacks in Celebration of New Jumbo Highway Sign Showing Overhanging Stomach

For Immediate Release:
June 30, 2014

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

With a whopping 38 percent obesity rate, McAllen is the second-most obese community in the U.S., according to a recent survey. So that’s why PETA will unveil a provocative new billboard along S. Bicentennial Boulevard near the intersection with Savannah Avenue that shows a man holding “love handles”—ones that hang off the billboard—next to the caption “Hold the Cheese. Try Vegan.” To mark the billboard’s debut, PETA has dispatched its “Dairy-Free Damsels”—a bevy of beautiful ladies in milkmaid outfits and spiked heels—to hand out free “cheesy” vegan snacks in order to help put a dent in the city’s obvious and embarrassing addiction to dairy products, the consumption of which has been linked to obesity and other life-threatening conditions.

When:   Tuesday, July 1, noon

Where:  Food giveaway:Intersection of Beaumont Avenue and S. Broadway Street, McAllen

“If you can squeeze those ‘cheese’ handles around your waist, it’s time to go vegan,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “The Dairy-Free Damsels’ recipe giveaway will provide a tasty reminder that you can save your health—and animals’ lives—by switching to vegan vittles.”

Cows on dairy farms are killed when their milk production declines, at 4 or 5 years of age—far short of their 25-year natural life expectancy. After their beloved calves are torn away from them so that supermarkets can sell the milk and cheese, mother cows low (call out) for days.

For more information, please see PETA’s blog post.