‘Tofu Never Caused a Pandemic’ Ad Offers Reality Check Amid National Meat Shortage
PETA Uses One of the World’s Most Versatile Foods to Highlight Contrast Between Eating for Life and Eating Products of Death
For Immediate Release:
May 11, 2020
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
PETA will be happy when the U.S. meat supply shortage is solved—not by reopening slaughterhouses, where thousands of workers have contracted the novel coronavirus, but by more and more people choosing to go vegan. That’s why the group is placing a billboard near a local urgent-care facility pointing out that we can keep everybody safe by eating vegan foods like tofu—one of the most versatile foods in the world—instead of paying for what comes out of offal-, waste-, and blood-splattered slaughterhouses and factory farms, where animal-borne diseases thrive.
“With hundreds of thousands dead from a pandemic linked to eating animals, the national meat shortage is cause for celebration, not complaint,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Tasty vegan foods are the key to preventing deadly zoonotic diseases as well as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and strokes. PETA stands ready to help people make the switch with its free vegan mentors, vegan recipes, tips, and more.”
Not only is tofu cheaper than meat, it’s also packed with protein, contains zero cholesterol, and can lower one’s risk of suffering from heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and numerous other life-threatening health issues. COVID-19 is believed to have originated in a live-animal market in China, where live and dead animals are sold for food. Previous influenza viruses have originated in pigs and chickens—but never in versatile vegan foods like tofu.
PETA offers a variety of delicious tofu-based recipes on its website, such as General Tso’s Tofu and Buffalo Tofu-Scramble Breakfast Tacos. The group recently placed full-page ads in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and five other papers in a $250,000 ad blitz urging Americans to move away from meat.
The ad is located at 2722 Ming Ave., next to Universal Urgent Care and across the street from Target, which sells tofu.
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.
