Pro-Vegan Billboard Serves Up Food for Thought About Eating Animals

Provocative PETA Ad Pleads With Passersby to See Animals as Individuals and Go Vegan

For Immediate Release:
December 7, 2017

Contact:
Audrey Shircliff 202-483-7382

As part of a new pro-vegan ad campaign outside fast-food restaurants in major cities across the country, PETA has placed a billboard—which shows a cow next to the words “I’m ME, Not MEAT. See the Individual. Go Vegan”—adjacent to Pizza Hut and Qdoba and near Hardee’s, Chick-fil-A, Jimmy John’s, and others. The billboard, which will be up for a month, aims to remind people that eating meat means eating the corpse of a sensitive animal who didn’t want to die.

The billboard is located at 6868 S. Emerson Ave.

“Animals used for food are made of flesh and blood, feel pain and fear, have unique personalities, and value their own lives just as we do,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s thought-provoking billboard encourages everyone to leave animals off their plates in favor of delicious vegan meals.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that in today’s meat industry, chickens’ and turkeys’ throats are slit while they’re still conscious, fish are cut open on the decks of fishing boats, piglets’ tails and testicles are cut off without painkillers, and cows are shot in the head, hung upside down, and bled to death. Cows in the dairy industry are repeatedly artificially inseminated, only to have their beloved calves taken away soon after birth so that humans can drink the milk that was meant for them. While vegans obviously have big hearts, studies show that they have healthier ones, too: Ditching animal-derived foods reduces a person’s chances of suffering from heart disease, diabetes, obesity, strokes, and cancer. And a United Nations study reported that a global shift to vegan eating is vital if we are to combat the worst effects of climate change.

PETA initially tried to post several similar ads at bus shelters around the city, but the Indianapolis Public Transportation Corporation rejected them. PETA is also placing ads in the meat-heavy cities of Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati, Ohio; Columbus, Georgia; Denver; and Phoenix.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.