Celebrate Men’s Health Week With These Hearty and Healthy Vegetarian Men!

• Posted by Matt at 9:54 AM
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Here’s a sobering fact: heart disease is the single biggest killer of men. That’s right – more deadly than car crashes and cancer, heart disease is the number-one cause of premature death among men in the UK. Why are we telling you this? Because you can help prevent the vast majority of cardiovascular diseases – and other degenerative illnesses, for that matter – simply by adopting a plant-based diet.

Today marks the start of Men’s Health Week, a week designed to get men to start thinking seriously about their health, well-being and longevity. If you’re thinking seriously about your health, consider this: one of the world’s leading health authorities, the American Heart Association, reports that vegetarians “have a lower risk of obesity, coronary heart disease (which causes heart attack), high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus and some forms of cancer”. So, what are you waiting for? Get healthy and live long by going vegetarian or vegan!

Of course, men’s health problems are not just male issues – they impact wives, mothers, daughters and sisters, too – so celebrate Men’s Health Week by passing this message on to everyone you know! To inspire you, we’ve rounded up eight of the fittest men around who know that ditching meat is the best thing that they can do for their health – and for animals and the environment, too.

Michael Clarke Duncan

Nominated for an Oscar for his starring role in The Green Mile, Michael Clarke Duncan‘s healthful vegetarian diet keeps him in the best shape of his life. Once plagued by illnesses while spending thousands of dollars on meat, Michael has turned his health around by going vegetarian.

John Bishop

Celebrated comedian by day and super-fit long-distance runner by night, John Bishop is the perfect poster boy (or man!) for a fine and fit vegetarian lifestyle.

Fauja Singh

Fauja Singh, aka the “Turbaned Tornado”, continues to stun the running world with his determination. At 101, he is one of the world’s oldest marathon runners. Not only is Fauja a staunch vegetarian, he’s also the oldest person ever to have appeared in a PETA ad!

Rich Roll

Labelled one of the “25 Fittest Guys in the World” according to Men’s Fitness, Rich Roll is an inspiring example of someone who has adopted a plant-based diet. At age 40, he turned his life around and went vegan and also became one of the world’s top Ultraman competitors.

Patrik Baboumian

He can raise a car clear off the ground, toss huge logs through the air, and lift monster dumbbells. He also hates cruelty to animals. Patrik Baboumian, holder of the “Strongest Man of Germany” title, is a plant-eater!

Owain Yeoman

After finding out how animals raised for food are treated, The Mentalist star dropped the flesh from his diet and has never felt or looked better.

Jake Shields

A Strikeforce MMA champion and peta2′s Most Animal-Friendly Athlete winner, Jake Shields is always ready to talk to other fighters about his lifelong vegetarian diet – and they’re listening.

James Willstrop

World number-two squash champion James Willstrop credits his vegetarian diet with his success: “Since I stopped eating meat, I’m faster, I have more energy, and I know that my decision has saved countless animals’ lives”.

Join these inspiring actors and athletes in being an all-star for animals! Follow PETA on Twitter and “like” PETA on Facebook for up-to-the-minute news on animal rights issues and ways to get involved in our campaigns. Sign the pledge to go vegan and order your free vegetarian/vegan starter kit today!

• Tags: cancer, Fauja Singh, heart attack, Jake Shields, James Willstrop, Men's Health Week, michael clarke duncan, Patrik Baboumian, Rich Roll, Vegetarianism

Speak Out for ALL Ocean Inhabitants on World Oceans Day

• Posted by Yvonne at 1:10 AM
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June 8 is World Oceans Day. Whilst many people will be speaking out for the protection of whales, dolphins and porpoises – which we obviously commend – isn’t it time that we also showed compassion towards all of the oceans’ inhabitants?

Paulo Brandão | cc by 2.0

Scientists have determined that lobsters not only feel pain but also perhaps feel pain even more so than humans would in similar situations. According to invertebrate zoologist Jaren G. Horsley, “The lobster does not have an autonomic nervous system that puts it into a state of shock when it is harmed. It probably feels itself being cut. … I think the lobster is in a great deal of pain from being cut open … [and] feels all the pain until its nervous system is destroyed” during cooking.

Many crabs have their legs damaged and torn off when fishers quickly grab them out of nets. Like lobsters, crabs are often thrown into pots of scalding-hot water and boiled alive. The crabs fight so hard against a clearly painful death that their claws often break off in their struggle to escape. Some crabs used for food are electrocuted and some are chopped up – all while they are still conscious.

Fish are sensitive animals who suffer unspeakable horrors when they are caught for food. Scientists have shown time and time again that fish feel pain just as mammals and birds do. From the moment fish are caught in nets and dragged from the water, they begin to slowly suffocate. Fish who are farmed are completely conscious while their gills are cut and are then left to bleed to death.

Eating “seafood” isn’t smart either, as the flesh is frequently contaminated with mercury and other toxins. You wouldn’t dream of drinking water tainted by sewage and other contaminants, so why on Earth would you eat the creatures who are pulled from the oceans? Calling fishing “sustainable” is a popular marketing gimmick used by the industry, but eating sea animals – regardless of their numbers – only contributes to the decimation of the oceans’ ecosystem.

The only truly sustainable fish is faux, so why not celebrate World Oceans Day with some fishless fingers or mock lobster. These options taste the same, but unlike real fish, they are free from harmful toxins and, most importantly, don’t claim animals’ lives.

Protect the world’s oceans by signing PETA’s vegan pledge promising never again to eat any of the oceans’ inhabitants.

• Tags: crab, fish, lobster, sustainable fishing, world oceans day

Bill Oddie Takes BBC Bosses to Task for Promoting Foie Gras

• Posted by StopFortnumAndMasonFoieGrasCruelty.com at 4:38 PM
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Brian Ledgard | CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Former BBC wildlife presenter Bill Oddie has condemned the BBC for promoting cruelly produced foie gras on BBC Two’s Great British Menu and on a number of its websites. In a scathing letter fired off to BBC bosses on behalf of PETA, Oddie adds his “voice to the distaste and disappointment at the BBC’s apparent lack of awareness or, perhaps – worse still – moral concern” in promoting a product so vile that it is illegal to produce in the UK.

“By featuring and publicising chefs and recipes involving foie gras, the BBC is condoning dreadful cruelty”, writes Oddie. “It would be admirable if the BBC would literally and publicly disown the production and consumption of foie gas.”

Oddie, who proclaims to represent a “historic link to BBC TV”, is joined by thousands of concerned citizens who have also contacted the BBC demanding that all promotions of the very un-British foie gras be removed from the license payer–funded service. Join them, and call on the BBC to stop promoting “torture in a tin”.

• Tags: BBC, bill oddie, Celebrity, foie gras, fortnum & mason

Silent Scream

• Posted by Matt at 11:55 AM
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Thanks to host Marco Pierre White, there will be plenty of screaming on Channel 5′s soon-to-debut Marco Pierre White’s Kitchen Wars. But for every meal prepared on the show, there will be countless screams that go unheard – those of the fish whose bodies are cut up, cooked and plated. That’s why PETA has sent a letter to the network asking for space to air our hard-hitting new anti-bullying TV spot, “Silent Scream”, during the show’s 7 June premiere. White’s feud with PETA dates back to 2006, when he was quoted in news reports making snide comments about PETA’s fact-based assertion that fish are intelligent animals who feel pain. White also kills fish and other animals for “sport”.

“Fish feel pain and fear, and they suffer when they are impaled, crushed, suffocated or cut open and gutted, all while they’re fully conscious”, says PETA’s Ben Williamson “It’s never right to hurt others simply because they are weaker and can’t speak up for themselves – regardless of what species they happen to be.”

Biologists have found that fish develop relationships with each other and even grieve when their companions die. Some fish are capable of using tools, while others gather information by eavesdropping. These intelligent, sensitive animals are so good-natured that Dr. Sylvia Earle, the world’s leading marine biologist, said, “I wouldn’t deliberately eat a grouper any more than I’d eat a cocker spaniel”.

Urge Chefs to Use Their Influence for Good
Tweet your favourite celebrity chef and ask him or her to consider the lives of fish in their kitchens. Remind them that fish feel pain and politely ask them to put down the knife. Click on the names of the following celebrity chefs and then tweet at them:

• Gordon Ramsay
• Jamie Oliver
• Nigella Lawson
• Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

• Tags: cruelty, fish, fishing, food, gordon ramsey, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, jamie oliver, marco pierre white, Nigella Lawson, seafood, Vegan, Video

Big Brother Returns With a PETA-Friendly Star

• Posted by Matt at 2:28 PM
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Love it, hate it or love to hate it, Big Brother returned to our screens yesterday, and we were overjoyed to see PETA friend Victoria Eisermann as one of the housemates! The ex-Playboy model, vegan and co-founder of K-9 Angels is a shining example of animal advocacy.

Here are just 6 of Victoria’s demonstrations for PETA that show her dedication:

For animals in labs, Victoria bathed in 'blood' to ask Dr Vince Cable to support the EU's cosmetics-testing ban.

Victoria at Silverstone handing out vegan sausages asking teams to 'rev your engine: go vegan'

Baring all for bears, Victoria and Lucy Clarkson urging the MoD to go-faux

Alongside Monica Harris showing Trafalgar Square that 50 baths = 1 steak

Asking passers by to 'let vegetarianism grow on you' in a dress made of lettuce

With Monica Harris in the freezing winter bodypainted as foxes to highlight the cruelty of the fur trade

If you would do anything for animals, then join our Action Team to receive calls to action and invites to demonstrations and events in your local area as well as be kept up to date on PETA’s work for animals.

• Tags: Animal Testing, Bath, bearskins, Big Brother, demonstrations, fur, Naked, nude, Photo, Skins, Vegan, vegetarian, Victoria Eisermann

World Environment Day: Green Means Vegan!

• Posted by Yvonne at 4:15 AM
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Sadly there are still “environmentalists” out there who like to talk the talk but not walk the walk when it comes to their diet. To mark World Environment Day on 5 June, here a few nuggets of information to put to any meat-, dairy- and egg-eating “environmentalists” you happen to know:

krandy85 | CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

• The bacteria, pesticides and antibiotics that are concentrated in animal flesh are also found in their faeces, and these chemicals can have catastrophic effects on the ecosystems surrounding large farms. In the US, animals raised for food produce 130 times the excrement of the humans who live there. Much of the waste from factory farms and abattoirs flows into streams and rivers, contaminating water sources.
• Scientists estimate that animals must be fed up to 10 kilograms of grain to produce just 1 kilogram of meat. The world’s cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people – more than the entire human population on Earth.
• In the past 50 years, the fishing industry has exterminated 90 per cent of large fish populations. Fishing nets capture all the animals in their path, and for every fish who ends up on a plate, many other animals were caught in nets and killed. During one year alone, an average of 16 kilograms of fish were sold per person worldwide – in the same year, 200 kilograms of marine animals per person were hauled up and discarded as “by-catch”.
• It takes 20,940 litres of water to produce 1 kilogram of meat but only 503 litres of water to produce 1 kilogram of wheat. A vegan diet requires only 1,137 litres of water per day, while a meat-based diet requires more than 15,160 litres of water per day.
• Feeding our appetite for flesh requires fuel to produce fertiliser for crops to feed animals, oil to run the trucks that take them to slaughter and electricity to freeze their carcasses. In some countries, more than one-third of the fuel and raw materials used each year goes towards raising animals for food.

And you don’t need to take our word for it – a recent Uni