Written by Jeff Mackey
Washington resident Alba Suarez—a parent, nurse, former teacher, and PETA member—has sent a letter to the head of the state's PTA regarding its announced partnership with McDonald's to "promote healthy eating for kids."
No, this isn't a belated April Fool's joke.
Suarez's letter asks the group to shelve the partnership since it sends the message that the PTA endorses the fast-food giant's fat-, cholesterol-, and sugar-laden foods—the type of foods linked to diabetes, heart disease, and the childhood-obesity epidemic—not to mention the cruel factory-farming practices used by McDonald's suppliers. As Suarez explains in her letter, "Despite the revenue from the partnership, I urge you to consider its true long-term cost—the promotion of unhealthy and inhumanely produced foods to our children."
How You Can Help
Our children deserve better than to be sold (and sold out for) harmful animal products. Please join Alba Suarez and PETA in asking the Washington State PTA to drop its partnership with McDonald's, and be sure to start your own kids on a lifetime of good health and compassionate action by choosing vegan foods for your family.
Written by Michelle Kretzer
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The end of summer means that pools close for people but open for dogs! Across the country, dogs are closing out the season with a splash.
Randall, famous for his video of the "crazy" honey badger, is back and taking on something truly crazy: horse-drawn carriages.
Would people respect pigeons more if the pigeons were disguised as other birds? One artist aims to make us take another look at our fellow urbanites through an unconventional method: pigeon sweaters.
Should "tastes like chicken" really mean "tastes like drugs"? That's certainly how it seems in a video comparison of how fast chickens on factory farms grow vs. how fast a chicken should grow naturally.
As McDonald's prepares to open its first vegetarian restaurant, the chain should commence with some other firsts, such as ending its McCruelty to chickens and offering veggie burgers at all its U.S. restaurants.
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New Features
Glee star Kevin McHale and his rescued dog, Sophie, star in a new PETA ad with a message that is music to animals' ears: Always adopt—never buy.
Photo: © Jack Guy www.jackguy.com, Grooming: Kristina Brown for Jed Root
New Action Alerts
Check out top model Austin Armacost giving PETA's anti-fur campaign his, ahem, full backing, and get inspired to ask designers to ditch fur.
New Contest
Your dogs will think they've died and gone to the big dog park in the sky if you win a six-month supply of dog food from cruelty-free company V-Dog!
Here's something that you might not know about PETA: We hold stock in companies whose policies we're trying to change so that we can attend annual meetings and propose shareholder resolutions to try to push companies to stop cruel practices. McDonald's had one such meeting today, so, of course, we were there with bells on.
PETA campaigner Tracy Patton stood up and asked McDonald's executives why they continue to allow their suppliers to use an archaic slaughter method that includes slicing chickens' throats while they're still conscious and scalding them to death in defeathering tanks. She explained to the group of shareholders that an improved slaughter method called "controlled-atmosphere killing" (CAK) would eliminate the worst abuses of chickens and is already used by McDonald's suppliers in Europe and by other companies in the U.S.
The McDonald's execs hemmed and hawed and made excuses, but they and the shareholders got the message that PETA isn't going to let McDonald's cruel slaughter of hundreds of millions of chickens each year be swept under the rug.
Make sure that McDonald's gets the message from you, too. E-mail President Don Thompson, and demand that the chain switch to CAK.
PETA's sporty officials are easy on the eyes but not on cruelty to animals. The refs convinced people to take a right turn at Albuquerque and dump meat and dairy products.
From the sidelines of a McCruelty restaurant, the gals called fouls on people caught being offensive to animals and gave them a vegetarian/vegan starter kit so that they could kick cruelty out of the game.
Hip-hop artist—and defender of animals—J Fields recently sat down with a PETA video crew to answer some questions about his involvement with PETA, why he went vegan (hint: It involved a KFC protest), his take on using animal skins and fur for clothing and accessories, and the importance of adopting companion animals (like his own pampered cat) instead of buying from pet stores and breeders.
The inspiring musician—who has his own independent label, Black Polarbare Game—also modeled PETA's McCruelty T-shirt:
Want to look sharp and combat cruelty like J Fields does? Sport a shirt of your own from the PETA Catalog!
Meet Feel Ideal. Practically every day that weather permits, he can be found outside his local McDonald's in Honolulu handing out leaflets explaining how chickens killed for the fast-food giant suffer and how the company—as one of the biggest sellers of chicken meat—could reduce this abuse by requiring its suppliers to switch to a more humane slaughter method.
It wouldn't be a proper protest without a poster, and Feel Ideal gave his a uniquely Hawaiian twist. Yes, it's the world's first McCruelty body board!
There's an important lesson to be learned from Mr. Ideal: You don't have to wait for a large organized demonstration to speak out against McCruelty (or any other kind of cruelty). You can make a huge statement all by yourself. And when you do, you're not really alone—PETA's got your back. Join the PETA Action Team to work together toward a kinder world for everyone.
How do you convince lawmakers to turn a blind eye to the devastating effect that fast food has on our health? If you're McDonald's, you spend more than $1.1 million (in 2011 alone) lobbying political representatives. YUM! Brands, the owner of KFC, wasn't far behind, at $845,000.
The Center for Responsive Politics reports that the food industry "has been fighting Congress in recent years over nutritional requirements, labeling information and advertising. Fast food restaurants in particular have faced pressure due to their aggressive marketing aimed at children."
So, McDonald's and KFC both have about a cool mil lying around that they could put toward switching to controlled-atmosphere killing, a slaughter method that would prevent chickens from having their throats cut while still conscious and often being scalded to death in defeathering tanks. But instead, both companies spent it asking politicians to play fast and loose with Americans' health.
Click here to tell McDonald's and here to tell KFC that you're hatin' the way that they torture chickens. I think I know where they can find a tidy sum of cash to get started making changes.
Written by PETA
McDonald's has kicked its PR machine into high gear after a terrific undercover investigation by Mercy for Animals at Sparboe Farms, one of McDonald's primary egg suppliers, revealed that workers grabbed hens by the throat and slammed them into cages, that an employee swung a hen by her feet, that male chicks were tossed into plastic bags to suffocate, that rotting corpses of hens were left in cages with live birds, and other horrendous abuses.
In response, McDonald's announced that it will stop buying eggs from Sparboe Farms. Hang on, though—don't let McDonald's PR move lead you to believe that this will make a real difference for animals. We've seen it before. What Mercy for Animals uncovered is business as usual for factory farms, as countless PETA investigations, even of other McDonald's suppliers, have shown.
One example: A 2007 PETA investigation of a Union City, Tennessee, slaughterhouse that supplies McDonald's with much of its chicken flesh revealed that employees yanked birds out of shackles so aggressively that they broke the birds' legs, amused themselves by forcing as many as six chickens into a shackle that was designed for one bird, and forcefully slammed chickens against shackles. The electrified water bath that is supposed to stun chickens before their throats are cut was not working for two days, and slaughterhouse operators knowingly allowed tens of thousands of chickens to have their throats slit while the birds were still conscious.
It isn't good enough for McDonald's to simply switch to buying eggs from another lousy supplier with no stricter standards of "care" than the previous cruel supplier. On filthy, intensive-confinement farms—which describes every one of McDonald's and KFC's suppliers—hens are crammed into feces-filled wire cages with less space than a sheet of paper for each bird, and chicks' beaks are burned off without painkillers.
What consumers must demand are meaningful reforms and an end to the worst abuses suffered by the chickens killed for McDonald's and KFC. Here's one way to help chickens: Encourage the chains to switch to a less-cruel slaughter method called "controlled-atmosphere killing" (CAK). All the abuses that chickens suffer in slaughterhouses would be eliminated if McDonald's required its suppliers to switch to CAK, because with CAK, the birds are dead before they are shackled, bled, and scalded in defeathering tanks. Yet McDonald's and KFC have dragged their feet for years instead of switching methods, even though CAK is approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and even though McDonald's European suppliers adopted this method years ago.
Buyer beware: If you eat at McDonald's or KFC, you're eating food created via extreme cruelty to animals. Please boycott these companies and click here to tell them that you're not lovin' their chicken abuse.
Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post
When pop sensation Ke$ha learned that McDonald's McCruelty is spending more than $1 billion on renovating its restaurants while still refusing to require its suppliers to upgrade to a less cruel method of slaughtering chickens, she fired off a letter to McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner calling out the company for its "Sleazy" behavior. The singer is even putting her money where her mouth is by offering McDonald's cash to help with the transition to a more humane slaughter system: "I may not have the $ that the Golden Arches has to throw around, but I'd be glad to lend a hand in helping bring your suppliers' slaughter practices into the 21st century."
The social, inquisitive chickens killed for McNuggets have their throats cut, many have their legs and wings broken, and many are dunked into the scalding-hot water of defeathering tanks while still conscious.. Meanwhile, Skinner and McDonald's continue to ignore the recommendation of the company's own animal welfare panel, which has endorsed a slaughter method that renders the birds unconscious at the start of the slaughtering process. This method, which has been approved the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is already in use by McDonald's suppliers in Europe, so there's no excuse for allowing American suppliers to continue with such cruelty.
Tell McDonald's to require American suppliers to switch to the less cruel slaughter method. As Ke$ha might say, "TiK ToK," the switch can't come a moment too soon for chickens.
Written by Heather Faraid Drennan
It was just another evening in Hollywood—the sun was sinking in a gold-and-orange blaze, throngs of tourists were posing for photos on the Walk of Fame, and some of my PETA colleagues and I gathered to spread the message that McDonald's suppliers mutilate conscious chickens.
Although a couple of teenagers who hovered around Ozzy Osbourne's star assured me that they could beat up anyone who gave us any trouble, most of the more than 300 passersby who took our leaflets were sympathetic. In fact, even the bus passengers wanted our leaflets—a convenient bus stop provided the opportunity for a certain enthusiastic (and tall) staffer to hand leaflets through the bus windows.
You can help by telling McDonald's to require its suppliers to use a less cruel chicken-slaughter method, lest the stretch of sidewalk in front of this Hollywood location give new meaning to "Walk of Shame."
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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