Leave Chickens Alone (Video Contest Winner) June 25, 2008

Posted by Pulin Modi at June 25, 2008 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 6 ) | TrackBack

Hello buddies. How's freedom fighting for the animals going this week? It's been pretty good for me, and I've even got a trip planned out to Portland, so I'm excited for that. I'll be screening I Am An Animal at Portland State University for free, so drop me a line if you need details. We can totally hang out and eat vegan doughnuts.

The point of this blog, though, is to announce the winner of the peta2 video contest. After reviewing dozens and dozens of great entries, I'm happy to announce that Claudia from Miami, Florida, has won the contest. Along with this honor, she'll get her own chicken costume and some rad merch from our store. Claudia's video, "Leave Chickens Alone" defends chickens in a creative way that plays off of the viral video "Leave Britney Alone" by Chris Crocker. I think it's brilliant. What do you think?

Here's her video:

Claudia tells me that she loves Oldies music and speaking up for animals and the environment. She first got interested in animal rights after hearing about the Iams Cruelty campaign, and she continues to also be interested in that as well as campaigns against PetSmart and KFC. She's not even halfway through her time in high school, so I know she'll influence a lot of other students in the next few years.

Congrats, Claudia, and thanks to everyone else on the Street Team who entered! The videos were really inspiring, so make sure you send them to all your friends so they can see your great work.

-Pulin

Posted by Pulin

These Chickens Have Spoken June 3, 2008

Posted by Pulin Modi at June 3, 2008 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 4 ) | TrackBack

If you haven't heard about some historic progress on the Kentucky Fried Cruelty campaign, check this out.

Vegan "chicken" at many KFC Canada locations and some groundbreaking welfare standards for these birds makes me really impressed with the hard work you have all done on the campaign. Of course, we're still campaigning against KFC in the US, UK, and elsewhere around the world. So check out some ways to get involved.

And if you need even more inspiration to be part of this campaign, take a look at how much fun these birds have while celebrating with some grapes (they're straight-edge so no wine for them)...

Yes, I know it's best to go vegan to save animals (My friend Leopold doesn't want to be eaten at all), but the progress we're making within these industries is also important in a long term movement to save all animals from suffering.

Thanks, friends!

-Pulin

Posted by Pulin

Keep the Art Coming! May 13, 2008

Posted by Marta at May 13, 2008 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 4 ) | TrackBack

Remember how I've been asking you to send your animal rights artwork our way? Well, we've definitely been sent some awesome pieces lately, and I wanted to share some with you. Both of these are from Lia Shaw, an amazing Street Teamer from Canada.

Lia created this first piece 'If Not Us, Why Them?' for her Grade 12 art class. The project was supposed to be an abstract self portrait. Lia says, "I chose to do one of my main morals and this is where it took me. I created two chickens and one person out of wire and then built a metal cage that was just big enough for all three to fit in as tightly as possible to show the cramped living conditions that there birds have to withstand. This piece was up in an art show at my local library."

Her second piece, 'Shop Cruelty Free' was for a pop art project for the same class and she chose to do her project on animal testing. She says, "I painted the background red and then filled in the silhouettes of the animals with magazine clippings of products from companies that test on animals. The rabbit has a growth on his side to show the growths that these animals get quite often from different procedures."


Got some thought-provoking art you'd like to show us, too? Send it our way! We just might feature it in the blog.

Which one of Lia's pieces do you like better? I really can't decide!

♥ Marta

Posted by Marta

New Investigation Reveals Egg Industry Abuse May 6, 2008

Posted by Marta at May 6, 2008 4:05 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 ) | TrackBack

I have to say, I've watched a lot of horrifying undercover investigations, but there's something about all of the egg industry footage that's just so unbelievably twisted.

Maybe it's because most people have trouble believing that egg-laying hens are treated cruelly. People think, well, hens lay eggs anyway, so what's wrong with buying eggs?

A new investigation by our friends at Mercy for Animals shows everyone just why the egg industry is so terrible. Workers at a supplier of NuCal—one of the largest egg companies in the U.S.—were documented ripping weakened birds out of tiny metal battery cages and throwing them violently into a "kill cart." Sick and injured birds were denied veterinary care and were left to die in filthy, crowded cages. Undercover investigators caught one worker twisting a sick bird's neck, throwing her on the ground, and leaving her to die. It's absolutely sickening. Watch the video for yourself.

You can help stop abuse like this. Please urge Triarc—the major restaurant company that owns Arby's and that will soon own Wendy's—to lessen the abuse of animals in the egg industry by only buying from farms that sell cage-free eggs. We know that Triarc purchases a vast majority of their eggs from factory farms and choosing the least cruel farms possible will eliminate some needless suffering.

Want to go one step further to help? Stop eating eggs altogether. If this investigation didn't convince you that hens in egg factory farms are treated bad enough, just know that egg-laying hens are still killed for food, too. Once their egg production drops, they are considered to be "spent" and are shipped off to slaughter to have their flesh made into things like chicken noodle soup.

And really, there are many amazing alternatives to eggs, so give it a shot. Try using banana or applesauce instead of eggs when you bake, or scramble up some tofu and veggies for your first meal of the day.

Let's help these hens!

♥ Marta

Posted by Marta

Ryan Gosling to KFC Canada: 'Do the Right Thing' April 30, 2008

Posted by Patricia at April 30, 2008 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 14 ) | TrackBack

What can I say about Ryan Gosling...brilliant, Academy Award-nominated actor, musician, man of compassion, extremely sexy, (in fact, I personally consider him to be one of Canada's finest exports)...

And just when I thought I couldn't adore him more, the marvelous Mr. Gosling goes and pens a letter to KFC Canada's head honcho, John Bitove, asking KFC Canada to stop the worst abuses of chickens.

In his letter, the Lars and the Real Girl star, who's spoken up for his feathered friends before, writes, "I understand that KFC Canada is still allowing its suppliers to scald chickens to death in scorching-hot water tanks and that many birds still suffer broken wings and legs because of violent treatment prior to slaughter...

The time is ripe to do the right thing. By adopting the basic recommendations made by PETA and scientific experts (including raising birds in a more natural manner and employing less cruel slaughter methods), you could dramatically improve the lives and deaths of chickens raised and killed for KFC Canada."

Here's hoping Bitove listens to his handsome fellow countryman and makes sure KFC Canada leads the way and implements these simple changes to alleviate some of the suffering of these gentle birds.

xox
Patricia

P.S. Looks like I'll be watching The Notebook tonight now that I've got Gosling on the brain. Man, I love that movie. What's your favorite Ryan Gosling flick? Fracture, Lars and the Real Girl, Half Nelson, Murder by Numbers...so many great ones to choose from and way too many to list. Let me know what you think.

Posted by Patricia

Street Teamers Mean Business! April 15, 2008

Posted by Marta at April 15, 2008 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 3 ) | TrackBack

Nothing makes us happier than seeing Street Teamers out doing awesome things for animals. So you can only imagine how excited we were to have well over 100 Street Teamers come out to our 'Kentucky Fried Cruelty' protest in Toronto after peta2's Take Action conference recently. Check the video out for yourself below. I dare you not to smile when you see so many wonderful people protesting the way that KFC treats its chickens.

Okay, as if that isn't awesome enough, check out this Street Team report we received recently from 17-year-old Chelsea Lang in Chico, CA:

A man who worked at a local radio station (KZFR 90.1) talked about a KFC protest I had on the radio. Then about a week later he called me and asked if I would come down to the station and do an interview. So my friend and I went there and did an interview live on the air. We talked about all of the cruel ways the workers at warehouses treat the chickens and explained the standards PETA wants KFC to meet. We also talked about KFCcruelty.com and said to Boycott KFC!


Have you done something awesome to help animals recently? Tell us about it at StreetTeam@peta2.com!

♥ Marta

Posted by Marta

Hey Canada, Help Chickens! March 3, 2008

Posted by Marta at March 3, 2008 4:06 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 15 ) | TrackBack

By now, the vast majority of you know that KFC means bad news for chickens. KFC is responsible for the deaths of roughly 1 billion chickens each year for its restaurants, and they have a responsibility to make sure that the worst abuses of these animals are eliminated—like making sure chickens don't have their throats slit while still fully conscious and aren't scalded alive.

We want to make sure KFC in Canada gets the message that its suppliers need to start treating chickens better, so please take a moment to call and ask that KFC make improvements in the ways its animals are treated:

Here are some things to keep in mind when you call:

- The laws that are meant to protect chickens in Canada are seldom enforced.
- KFC is allowing birds to have their throats slit while they are fully conscious and scalding them to death in tanks of hot water meant to remove their feathers when they are already dead.
- KFC is lagging behind the industry. Burger King, Wendy's, and McDonald's have all pledged to make improvements in the way they treat animals.

Please remember to be polite—no one wants to listen to someone who's mean, right? After you call, drop us a line at StreetTeam@peta2.com letting us know how it went, and we'll give you 500 Street Team points. Not only that, a chicken will thank you personally. Okay, not really, but that would be sweet, wouldn't it?

♥ Marta

PS - If you want to make a 'Kentucky Fried Cruelty' sign of your very own, you can do that here.
PPS - If you think you're super-cute—and you don't eat animals—nominate yourself for Cutest Vegetarian Alive!

Posted by Marta

Harris Teeter Victory February 21, 2008

Posted by Pulin Modi at February 21, 2008 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 4 ) | TrackBack

You may remember that Safeway recently announced some pretty significant improvements to its animal welfare standards. Well, Harris Teeter, a subsidiary of Charlotte-based Ruddick Corporation, which has nearly 200 stores in seven states—has announced groundbreaking plans to improve conditions for some of the animals who are killed for its stores. According to the company's new plan, which places it at the forefront of the grocery industry regarding animal welfare, Harris Teeter will do the following:

• Give purchasing preference to suppliers that use or switch to controlled-atmosphere systems—the least-cruel method of bird slaughter, begin purchasing 2 percent of its turkeys by the fall of 2008 from suppliers that use this method, and increase its purchase of chickens killed by controlled-atmosphere slaughter systems by 5 percent over each of the next three years (for a total of 26 percent).

• Give purchasing preference to suppliers that are phasing out gestation crates—restrictive metal enclosures that confine pregnant pigs—and increasing the amount of pig meat that it purchases from suppliers that are phasing out gestation crates by 10 percent in 2009, 15 percent in 2010, and 20 percent in 2011.

• Introduce a new line of Harris Teeter-branded cage-free eggs, give purchasing preference to producers of cage-free eggs, increase the amount of cage-free eggs that it sells from 6 percent to 9 percent by 2009, and work toward increasing that amount to 12 percent in 2010.

What does this all mean? Basically, as an individual and as an organization, it's without a doubt best to not eat any flesh or eggs. Animals don't have "meat" on their bones for us to consume—it's a part of their bodies! And they don't lay eggs for people to steal and eat—it's actually part of their menstrual cycle. However, it's by far better to have Harris Teeter make these changes at the corporate level as standards for farmed animals become gradually better than to make no improvements at all. So we commend Harris Teeter for taking a step in the right direction.

-Pulin

Posted by Pulin

Would You Eat a Chicken's Period? January 24, 2008

Posted by Marta at January 24, 2008 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 20 ) | TrackBack

If I were to pose this question to fifty random people on the street, my guess is that the vast majority would say, "Of course not!" in disgust. And yet, these same people probably eat chickens' periods on a daily basis.

Not to get all menstrual on you, but a girl's period happens when an unfertilized egg and other tissue are discharged from her body, right? Well, when a hen lays an egg, it has either been fertilized, in which case a chicken will eventually come out of the shell, or it's unfertilized, and people apparently thought it would be a good idea to eat these eggs.

I used to eat eggs, too, but one day, I went to crack open an egg and found blood in it. That was enough to keep me from eating eggs only when they were mixed into other things (like cake, cookies, etc.), then a couple of months later I was making cookies and cracked open an egg only to find blood in that egg, too. It was pretty sickening, and then I made the realization that I found blood in the eggs because eggs are chickens' periods. Needless to say, I stopped eating eggs entirely after that.

I can't think of anything more gross than eating a period. Who wants scrambled chickens' periods? I'll take tofu scramble instead, thanks.

If you want to quit your egg habit, but aren't quite sure what to eat instead, here are some suggestions:

- Making cookies, cake, or some other baked good? You can use bananas or applesauce as a binder, or check out Ener-G Egg Replacer (Find it at a store near you here.).
- Or maybe you're looking to get all fancy on me and make something with eggs as a main ingredient? Try some vegan quiche, French toast, or chocolate mousse.

Seriously, look at how sad the egg industry is anyway:

And look at how delicious the egg-free, tofu-scramblin' industry is:


Comment below with what you like to eat instead of chickens' periods.

♥ Marta

PS - I was going to include a disgusting "chicken period" image that my friend Joel made in this blog, but I decided to spare you all from throwing up your last two meals. You're welcome.

Posted by Marta

Win a Fancy "I Am Not a Nugget" Tank! January 23, 2008

Posted by Ashleigh at January 23, 2008 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 118 ) | TrackBack

Calling all you fashion-forward animal-loving ladies! We're giving away three of our fabulous "I Am Not a Nugget" tank tops!

Chickens make up more than 96% of all land animals raised for food, yet they are NOT protected under the Humane Slaughter Act—which means that many chickens have their throats slit while they are still conscious and some are scalded to death in defeathering tanks (Take a look at our new KFC investigation for more info.).

Well guess what? Chickens are not nuggets, and neither are you! So stand proud and declare "I Am Not a Nugget" with one of our sweet tank tops!

And while you're at it, send this letter to government officials asking them to protect chickens under the Humane Slaughter Act.

To win, comment below with your tank size (S, M, L) and why chickens are NOT nuggets.

The contest ends on February 6, 2008, and winners will be chosen and notified by February 13, 2008.

Just so you know . . . by commenting here, we're taking that as acknowledgment that you've read and agreed to our privacy policy.

Also by commenting, you are agreeing to the following terms and conditions.

-Ashleigh

Posted by Ashleigh