As plant-based protein makes it way on to more and more store shelves and restaurant menus, one Republican senator says she wants to end “deceptive” labeling, which she worries could be fooling consumers.
Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) — who is also a cattle rancher — recently introduced the Real MEAT Act. The bill would put new labeling requirements on fake meat products.
“I think we’re seeing a number of fake food fads that are going on and we want to make sure that consumers know what they’re buying,” said Fischer. “When you look at a lot of the plant-based meals that are being put out there, they’re trying to piggyback on really, really good nutritious, safe beef.”
The senator told Yahoo Finance she had “big concerns” about the impact of plant-based protein on the ranching industry in her state.
“Ranching and the production of livestock, to provide safe beef across this country, is an economic engine in the state of Nebraska,” said Fischer. “It produces over a $13 billion economic impact on the state.”
The bill would codify the definition of “beef” as meat derived from cattle and require plant-based products that mimic animal meat to include the word “imitation” on the label. The word “imitation” would have to be in “uniform size and prominence” before or after the food name — along with a statement that the product contains no meat.
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“Impossible Foods” burgers made from plant-based substitutes for meat products sit on a shelf for sale on November 15, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Angela Weiss / AFP)
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“If it’s imitation, it should be labeled imitation. If it’s real beef, there’s one ingredient — and that’s beef. If it’s an imitation, like Beyond [Meat] burgers or the Impossible burgers, they have over 20 ingredients,” said Fischer in an interview with Yahoo Finance. “It shouldn’t be confused with real beef.”
The plant-based protein industry, which includes companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, argues consumers already know what they’re buying and eating.
“Impossible Foods stands for truth and transparency. That’s why our products are clearly labeled ‘made from plants,’” said a spokesperson for Impossible Foods in a statement. “There is no evidence of consumer confusion. In fact, our extraordinary sales growth is due precisely to the fact that consumers are seeking and buying plant-based ingredients at record levels.”
The plant-based meat market is big – and growing: it’s estimated to be $12.1 billion in 2019 and projected to reach $27.9 billion by 2025, according to one estimate.
What’s on the label?
The Real MEAT Act would also strengthen the government’s ability to take action against mislabeled products.
“Real beef has to go through a very rigorous labeling and inspection process. That’s not true with this product that we’re seeing now in grocery stores,” Fischer said.
The Plant-Based Foods Association blasted the provision as an “unprecedented power grab.” Earlier this month, PBFA released its voluntary labeling guidelines for the industry. The standards allow for references to animal meat (i.e.: hamburger or chicken) with qualifiers like “plant-based,” “vegan,” “veggie,” “made from plants,” etc.
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Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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But Fischer argues that putting the word “imitation” on the label will clarify any confusion.
“A lot of times we’re seeing some false advertising, I think, and really some smear campaigns. You have the plant based products… they look like beef. They have the appearance and beef,” she said.
The Letter to the Editor that follows this Introduction was written by Shane
Zoglman and published Nov. 20, 2019 by *The Dubois County Herald* in
Indiana, a
mid-Western state with a large poultry and egg industry. In granting
permission
to UPC to share his letter with our readers, Shane added some information
about
his own evolution:
Howdy, sure, post away. For some history, back when I was a teenager, and
didn’t have any good examples or guidance in the form of grownups, I
worked
for about 4 years on a chicken farm, that is, an egg farm, gathering eggs
from
the mega-sized houses, taking out the dead and crippled chickens and also
taking out the old ones, loading them on semis and putting the new young
birds
in the cages.
I also did a few part time jobs of working for a farm where I helped load
turkeys into the semis. I have to say I didn’t think about the animals’
suffering, it just didn’t enter my mind. So I am someone who has seen both
sides and has changed a lot over the years. The thing I do not understand
is
people that never wake up. I think a big help in my waking up to animal
cruelty was stumbling onto the Shark Online YouTube channel years ago. I
had
been to a couple rodeos as a kid, but again, never was aware of the
cruelty as
I see it now after seeing their videos of rodeo cruelty.
These days I do not buy guns and ammo to kill animals with. I buy
binoculars
to enjoy watching them with, and instead of putting effort into killing,
I put
effort and money into taking in animals that need a home as well as
trying to
spread some of the message in my own way that things need to change. –
Shane
Zoglman
Here is Shane’s letter in *The Dubois County Herald*, Nov. 20, 2019:
___________________________________________
Well it is wintertime in Dubois County again and once again the turkey
manufacturing industry has done nothing to alleviate the suffering of
turkeys
being trucked down the highways at night in open cages, going 60-mph with no
protection from the horrific freezing cold.
The profiteers of the turkey manufacturing industry cannot be bothered to
spend
a few bucks to lessen the cruelty they inflict on their product. After all,
a
healthy profit margin is what life is all about, right?
After their freezing cold, 18-wheeled torture trip, many of the turkeys are
thrown still alive into boiling hot water. Then they are sold and shipped to
China, where most turkeys “manufactured” in America end up. It’s so great
that
China gets the food and people in Dubois County get the pollution, the
stink and
the humanity-degrading, low-paying jobs of inflicting cruelty on animals
while a
few rich people at the top get the money.
What does it say that Dubois County has so many churches and so many
Christmas
decorations and so many people that claim to be Christians and yet so much
unnecessary horrific animal cruelty and no complaint of it, or effort to do
anything to stop it?
You cannot look at humans in middle America and convince me that monsters
do not
exist. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
As an animal activist, I truly want to celebrate any step forward for animals. On one hand, it makes me very happy that President Trump signed the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act into law yesterday. (And yes, it’s difficult for this diehard liberal to admit that Trump actually did something good, but even a broken clock is right twice a day).
The legislation, which passed the Senate unanimously – something truly remarkable in these divided times – expands on the 2010 Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act and increases the punishment for instances of animal cruelty, making them felony crimes.
The new law was heralded by many in the animal protection movement. Kitty Block, the president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States, had this to say: “PACT makes a statement about American values. Animals are deserving of protection at the highest level. The approval of this measure by the Congress and the president marks a new era in the codification of kindness to animals within federal law. For decades, a national anti-cruelty law was a dream for animal protectionists. Today, it is a reality.”
Now, like I said, I agree that this is a positive step. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that this new law completely ignores 99 percent of the animal cruelty that routinely takes place every single day in the United States.
According to The Washington Post, the PACT Act “outlines exemptions for humane euthanasia; slaughter for food; recreational activities such as hunting, trapping and fishing; medical and scientific research; ‘normal veterinary, agricultural husbandry, or other animal management practice’; and actions that are necessary ‘to protect the life or property of a person.’”
Of course animal cruelty to dogs and cats by private citizens should be dealt with severely. But what about the billions of animals tortured each year on America’s factory farms? Or how about the tens of thousands of animals, including dogs and cats, who are tested on and mistreated in laboratories?
Can we actually say we’re cracking down on animal cruelty when we still allow SeaWorld to keep cetaceans captive and force them to perform? Or permit insanely cruel practices like fur trapping and bow hunting?
My objective is not to trash Ms. Block or even President Trump on this issue (though Trump’s record on animals is pretty abysmal), but merely to point out that animal cruelty is still animal cruelty, even when it’s done for money or recreation or sport. In fact, we should take those cases of abuse even more seriously because they affect so many more animals. One sick fuck torturing his dog is abhorrent, but what about a business that tortures thousands in a laboratory or a puppy mill?
As society’s view of what constitutes animal cruelty evolves, so will our laws. But, in the meantime, it’s the animals who needlessly suffer day in and day out. Sadly, the PACT Act leaves the overwhelming majority of those animals no better off than they were before.
Municipal Court Judge James Devine sentenced Catherine McCartney, 50, on Thursday, NJ.com reported. McCartney, who has a record of arrests related to bear hunt protests, pleaded guilty to obstructing “the administration of law and the prevention of the lawful taking of wildlife”.
McCartney, a dedicated animal rights activist, plans to appeal the sentence, relating to the incident in in Vernon, New Jersey.
In a statement she read in court, McCartney said she did not regret her decision in rescuing the bear cub from the painful trap.
“These animals are innocent and so I made the moral decision to let the bear go so he could run back to his mother, and it was the right thing to do,” she said.
The incident in question took place in October in a condominium complex. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection said it installed two culvert traps inside the complex campus to capture a bear—known as “Momma Bear” by activists—following two incidents with residents. None of these incidents resulted in injury.
Mark Nagelhout, who helped McCartney free the cub, also plead guilty to the same charges. However, he did not receive a jail sentence since this was his first offence.
Dogs can read human emotions. So, it appears, can horses. Whales have regional accents. Ravens have demonstrated that they might be able to guess at the thoughts of other ravens — something scientists call “theory of mind,” which has long been considered a uniquely human ability. All of these findings have been published within the past several weeks, and taken together they suggest that many of the traits and abilities we believe are “uniquely human” are, in fact, not so unique to us.
That statement probably sounds as if it is veering perilously close to anthropomorphism, and if you know anything about research concerning animal behavior, you likely know this: Anthropomorphism is bad. Animals are animals, and people are people; to assume that an elephant, for example, experiences joy in the same way a human does is laughably unscientific. This has been the prevailing mode of thought in this line of scientific inquiry for most of the last century — to staunchly avoid, and even ridicule, any research project that dared to suggest that animals might be thinking or feeling in the same way that humans do.
But new studies like these, along with a slew of recent books by respected biologists and science writers, are seriously considering the inner lives of animals. Now some prominent scientists are arguing that, though the impulse was well-intentioned, decades of knee-jerk avoidance of all things anthropomorphic may have mostly served to hold this field back. “It ruined the field,” biologist and author Carl Safina told Science of Us. “Not just held it back — it’s ruined the field. It prevented people from even asking those questions for about 40 years.”
New studies … are seriously considering the inner lives of animals. Though the impulse was well-intentioned, decades of knee-jerk avoidance of all things anthropomorphic may have mostly served to hold this field back.
The theme of Safina’s book Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel pairs nicely with a forthcoming title from famed primatologist Frans de Waal called Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? Both scientists make the case for something the biologist Gordon Burghardt called “critical anthropomorphism” — using your own human intuition and understanding as a starting point for understanding animal cognition. “Thus, saying that animals ‘plan’ for the future or ‘reconcile’ after fights is more than anthropomorphic language: These terms propose testable ideas,” de Waal writes.
Animal behavioral science began in the 1910s and 1920s by focusing on description in order to combat superstition (cats are not witches’ familiars, tortoises are not especially tenacious, and grasshoppers are not lazy, etc). The problem is that, eventually, “[d]escription — and onlydescription — became ‘the’ science of animal behavior,” Safina writes in his book, which was published last summer. “Wondering what feelings or thoughts might motivate behavioral acts became totally taboo.” Here’s an example Safina uses: A “good” scientist’s notes might say something like, “The elephant positioned herself between her calf and the hyena.” A bad, anthropomorphic-leaning scientist, on the other hand, would observe the same scene and write, “The mother positioned herself to protect her baby from the hyena.” How can the scientist prove what the mother elephant was intending to do? You can’t see a thought; you can’t observe a feeling. Therefore, to presume that animals possessed either of these things was considered unscientific.
Even raising the mere question of animal awareness was once enough to potentially ruin a career. In the 1970s, the biologist Donald Griffin published a book that did almost exactly that: Question of Animal Awareness. Griffin at this point was a well-respected scientist who had recently made the discovery that bats use echolocation, or sonar, to navigate their surroundings. But after the publication of his book, his professional reputation was largely ruined. Even Jane Goodall caught some flak for going so far as to “humanize” her chimp research subjects by giving them names, and as recently as the 1990s, a writer in the prestigious journal Science advised that research concerning animal cognition “isn’t a project I’d recommend to anyone without tenure.”
Even raising the mere question of animal awareness was once enough to potentially ruin a career.
Better data, including advances in neuroimaging technology and videos from scientists doing fieldwork, is now forcing many to reconsider some very basic questions of animal cognition. Today it sometimes seems like barely a week goes by without the publication of some new study that shows evidence of one species or another demonstrating what might’ve once been considered a strictly “human” ability or emotion.
Evidence of empathy, and even comforting behavior, has been observed in a variety of species
A recent study proposed that the humble prairie vole, a rodent found across the United States and Canada, appears to console its fellow vole after mean scientists stress it out by giving it a (small) electric shock.
Behaviors that look a lot like consolation have also been observed in animals known for their sociability, like elephants. When one Asian elephant sees that another elephant is agitated, scientists have observed that the calmer one will respond by touching the distressed animal with its trunk. “I’ve never heard that vocalization when elephants are alone,” Joshua Plotnik, who led the study, toldDiscovery. “It may be a signal like, ‘Shshh, it’s okay,’ the sort of sounds a human adult might make to reassure a baby.”
Contagious yawning, some scientists argue, is another signal of empathy and has recently been observed and recorded in chimpanzees.
Some research suggests that a few animals have demonstrated signals of self-awareness
The best way scientists currently have of measuring this admittedly abstract concept is the mirror recognition test (though some recent work has called the accuracy of this method into question). This usually involves marking the subject with some kind of conspicuous, but odorless, dye and placing it in front of a mirror. Passing the test involves examining the mark in the mirror, and then examining it on their own body; this suggests that the animal grasps that the reflection is a representation of them. Apes and monkeys seem to be able to figure the game out.
In the early 2000s, a pair of scientists found that bottlenose dolphins could also pass the mirror test with flying colors. In her new book Voices in the Ocean, science writer Susan Casey nods to that study, and notes that, in subsequent years, elephants and magpies have also taken the mirror test and passed. (For context, humans don’t pass this test until they are about two.)
Some animals appear to be capable of understanding the perspective of others
Beyond the raven’s newly discovered behaviors, there is evidence that scrub jays are able to see the world from another scrub jay’s viewpoint, which helps them hide their food. Male Eurasian jays seem to be able to make a good guess at what sort of food female Eurasian jays might like to eat. “It was long thought that only humans could do this,” University of Cambridge psychologist Nicola Clayton told Wired of the jay research. “What we’ve shown in a series of experiments is that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
To be sure, in an era of viral videos, it’s easy to take this idea —Anthropomorphism is okay now! — and get carried away with it. A perfect recent example is a back-and-forth over a picture of a trio of kangaroos. According to the Facebook caption accompanying the photo, the female had recently died, and the male and baby were “mourning” it. Media outlets took this at face value and ran with it, with headlines like “Dying Kangaroo Mom Spends Last Moment Holding Her Baby.”
And then, as is the circle of life for a viral news story, came the debunkings: The male kangaroo was just trying to have sex with the female, these articles scolded, and to believe any differently was a sign of “naive anthropomorphism.” Safina’s impression of the photo, incidentally, is that there really isn’t much we can tell one way or the other from a still photo. Really, the photo — or, more specifically, the instantly polarized online reactions to the photo — tell us more about ourselves than they do about kangaroo behavior.
“The one thing that is almost never allowed, or never thought of, is that there can be nuance,” Safina said. “There can be a range of emotions that happen in nonhumans, just as there is in humans.” After a human death, for example, the person’s loved ones show a range of emotions — denial, confusion, even some terribly inappropriate laughter. “But with animals everything has to be either/or,” Safina continued. People either want to believe that animals are pure and kindhearted and all-around better than we are — or they want to believe the very opposite, that humans are the most remarkable creatures on Earth, and animal behavior is driven only by instinct. (As if human behavior isn’t, too.)
Rushing to an unsupported conclusion that animals are just like us is bad, biased science. But willfully ignoring evidence of animal behaviors that look suspiciously like human emotions is unscientific and biased, too. “The key point is that anthropomorphism is not always as problematic as people think,” de Waal writes, adding that this is probably particularly true of animals with brains like ours: apes, sure, but even elephants and some marine mammals like dolphins. After all, we’re animals, too.
This week Insight is looking at the emotions of dogs and their human companions. Do they actually love us? | Tuesday 26 April, 8:30pm SBS
Sir Paul McCartney has been transformed into a cartoon for a new music video for PETA.
The Beatles star, 77, has called for a ban on unethical animal testing with the new clip for the animal rights group which is set to the tune of his 1993 protest song, Looking for Changes.
Speaking of the video, Paul, who has long been fronting campaigns for PETA, said: ‘I’m looking for changes that will continue the momentum of getting animals out of laboratories’.
Paul McCartney writes a song for Peta to oppose animal testing
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For a good cause: Sir Paul McCartney, 77, has been transformed into a cartoon for a new music video for PETA
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Seeing double: The musician’s likeness has been used for the new campaign
Paul, who happily donated his song to the video, continued: ‘Experiments on animals are unethical – they’re a colossal failure and a waste of time and money. We can and must do better.’
The animated video sees the likes of a cat, rabbit and monkey being forced to undergo rigorous, and heartbreaking, testing in a government funded lab.
Suddenly the animals are set free in their natural element, before cartoon Paul comes along with his guitar to continue singing the tune.
‘We must do better’: The Beatles star has called for a ban on unethical animal testing with the new clip for the animal rights group
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‘Fellow creatures’: The clip is set to the tune of his 1993 protest song, Looking for Changes
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‘Unethical’: Paul, who has long been fronting campaigns for PETA, passionately spoke of the video
Horrifying: The animated video sees the likes of a cat, rabbit and monkey being forced to undergo rigorous, and heartbreaking, testing in a government funded lab
Proving that slow and steady wins the raise, the evil scientist dons an ‘I’ve changed’ shirt as he follows Paul.
Paul has joined the likes of The Black Keys, Sia and Morrissey in donating their songs to PETA.
He has been a vegetarian since 1975 after seeing lambs in a field as he and his late wife Linda ate a meal where they consumed lamb.
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Yay: Suddenly the animals are set free in their natural element, before cartoon Paul comes along with his guitar to continue singing the tune
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Changed man: Proving that slow and steady wins the raise, the evil scientist dons an ‘I’ve changed’ shirt as he follows Paul
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Activist: Paul has joined the likes of The Black Keys, Sia and Morrissey in donating their songs to PETA
He is also the creator of ‘Meat Free Mondays and has narrated PETA’s shocking documentary Glass Walls which sheds a light on the cruel treatment of farmed animals.
Meanwhile, Paul recently revealed that his ate Beatles bandmate John Lennon visits him in his dreams in a emotional new interview.
The music legend admitted John – who was murdered in December 1980 aged 40 – regularly appears in his dreams during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
The Hey Jude hitmaker said: ‘I dream about him. When you’ve had a relationship like that for so long, such a deep relationship, I love when people revisit you in your dreams.
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Defining moment: He has been a vegetarian since 1975 after seeing lambs in a field as he and his late wife Linda ate a meal where they consumed lamb
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Animal rights: He is also the creator of ‘Meat Free Mondays and has narrated PETA’s shocking documentary Glass Walls which sheds a light on the cruel treatment of farmed animals
New documentary The Animal People will make its world premiere at the Austin Film Festival on Saturday, October 26. Executively produced by vegan actor and Joker star Joaquin Phoenix, the film is produced by CSI star Jorja Fox and directed by Cassandra Suchan (Rock The Bells) and Dennis Henry Hennelly (Bold Native). The Animal People follows a group of six activists from the United States arm of British animal-rights group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) who were surveilled by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and ultimately indicted as domestic terrorists for leading protests against Huntingdon Life Sciences, a major animal-testing company. The FBI used its surveillance of the activists as a model for targeting later movements such as Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter. Prior to the activists’ indictments, the US Congress rewrote laws to bend to corporate pressure, potentially weakening the free-speech rights of all Americans. “This film is about much more than just this case,” Phoenix said. “It’s about fundamental questions concerning free speech, social change, and corporate power that have never been more urgently relevant in our world.” The Animal People features interviews with the six activists spanning more than a decade and aims to illustrate the result of activism being classified as terrorism when insitutions of power are involved.
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Jessica Scott-Reid | Special to The Globe and Mail
Published 6 hours ago
Updated October 20, 2019
From October 19-21, The Globe and Mail is offering complimentary access to
all our election, news and business coverage. Learn more | Open this photo
in gallery
[At Newfoundland’s Northern Harvest Sea Farms, as many as 1.8 million salmon
suffocated to death in early September owing to lack of oxygen in the water.
A ship is seen in Fortune Bay, off the Newfoundland coast, on Oct. 2
disposing the decomposing remains of salmon into the water after the mass
die-off. The layer of rotten fish sludge sitting on the bottom of bay is
said to be more than 15 metres thick in some areas.]
Atlantic Salmon Federation/Bill Bryden/The Globe and Mail
Jessica Scott-Reid is a Montreal-based freelance writer and animal advocate.
It’s a notion that has made headlines several times over the past few years:
Fish feel pain, and the way we catch and kill them for food may actually be
cruel. This evolution in understanding of the sentience of an animal
long-considered too simple has caused some controversy and discomfort. And
as Newfoundland copes with a massive fish-farm die-off, concerns about the
well-being of the fish in crowded farms are being added to this mounting
conversation.
At Newfoundland’s Northern Harvest Sea Farms, as many as 1.8 million salmon
suffocated to death in early September, due to lack of oxygen in the water.
As The Globe and Mail reported two weeks ago, concerned marine biologists
noted the fish would have been stressed and fighting for oxygen in the
cramped, warm waters. Workers have also been struggling to deal with the
decomposing remains, which are being vacuumed out of the cages, processed on
land and dumped back into the sea. The layer of rotten fish sludge sitting
on the bottom of bay is said to be more than 15 metres thick in some areas,
and marine biologists worry this sludge could create algae blooms that steal
oxygen from the water and choke out other wild marine life.
Fish farming is a rapidly growing sector within Canada’s fishing industry,
with salmon being the most commonly farmed fish, and worth about $1-billion.
There are concerns, however, about a lack of government oversight of these
farms and about the damage they can cause to surrounding environments.
Deterioration of water quality owing to waste production and the spread of
disease to wild fish populations (and of drugs used to treat those
diseases), are included in these concerns. Last year, member of Parliament
Fin Donnelly told CBC News that open-net fish farms are essentially “using
the ocean as a toilet.”
For a food source typically touted as environmentally sustainable, and
perhaps less ethically fraught than their land-bound counterparts, fish may
actually be more complicated than we once thought.
Growing research now points to the fact that fish have the ability to
experience sensations, including pain and suffering. In a 2018 article in
Smithsonian Magazine, It’s Official: Fish Feel Pain, author Ferris Jabr
explains that at the anatomical level, fish have neurons known as
nociceptors, “which detect potential harm, such as high temperatures,
intense pressure, and caustic chemicals.” Fish bodies also produce the same
innate painkillers (that is, opioids) that mammals do.
Mr. Jabr details several studies, which show fish demonstrating atypical
behaviours when inflicted with pain and returning to typical behaviours when
given painkillers.
In more recent research, biologist Lynne Sneddon of the University of
Liverpool told The Independent, “When the fish’s lips are given a painful
stimulus they rub the mouth against the side of the tank much like we rub
our toe when we stub it.” She added: “If we accept fish experience pain,
then this has important implications for how we treat them.”
Although evidence is growing about the sentience of fish, they still lack
legal protection in Canada regarding their welfare or humane handling, and
are legally considered property when caught or farmed. Fishing is exempt
from most provincial animal-care acts as an accepted activity in which an
animal may be permitted to suffer (much like the farming and slaughtering of
other animals for food).
And though there are no statistics on the number of fish killed for food in
Canada each year, we know the industry is worth several billion dollars,
with exports of $6.6-billion worth of fish and seafood in 2015 putting
estimates in the hundreds of millions of fish permitted to suffocate to
death each year. The potential suffering associated with that number of
animals is hard to comprehend.
Ethical and environmental concerns surrounding the way we farm, catch and
kill fish for food are increasing. Allowing sentient animals capable of
suffering to be crammed into cages where they are unable to escape harmful
conditions, or to be pulled out of their environments, allowed to suffocate
to death, no longer aligns with the values of many Canadians who care about
the humane treatment of animals.
Compounding environmental stress upon already vulnerable ecosystems and
biodiversity only exacerbates this very obvious problem.
It’s time to care about fish, and perhaps that means leaving them alone.
‘Go eat a couch if you want’ (Photo: Instagram / Whoopi Goldberg)
American actor and TV personality Whoopi Goldberg has been slammed for having a ‘triggered fit’ over plant-based meat.
The celebrity featured on talk show The View earlier this month, where she defended her right to consume bacon.
“What I don’t want is no choice…,” the star said. “I like the bacon, I want the bacon, you don’t have to eat it… No one should tell you that you can’t have something.”
The comment received backlash from animal-rights charity PETA, who said it couldn’t help but ‘call-out’ Goldberg for her ‘rant on The View’.
‘Enormous suffering’
“Really, Whoopi? Eating bacon is your Friday cause? Your ‘choice’ really hurts. Be kind,” PETA said. “Animals should have a choice though. Eating bacon causes enormous suffering and ends a pig’s life.
“It’s so easy to make choices that don’t support suffering and death. We urge you to consider that.”
‘Making a fuss’
“Hey I understand PETA is making a fuss because I like bacon,” Goldberg tweeted to her 1.5 million followers.
“I never said I was a vegan, and just like I want choice over my body, I want the same for what goes into my body. I would NEVER suggest that ANYONE pressure any one of YOU to change your vegan habits. Go eat a couch if you want.”
‘Animals are not property’
The star’s response added to the controversy, with a plethora of vegans highlighting the cruelty of bacon.
“You spoke a truth in you that you didn’t realize you had, Whoopi,” one user tweeted.
“Animals are not property just as human beings are not property. They don’t belong to us. They deserve to have control over what happens to their bodies just as we do.”
PETA has been contacted by the concerned guardian of a cat named Mikey who has reportedly been stranded atop an unclimbable tree for the past week, near the intersection of Manzanar Avenue and Rosemead Boulevard in Pico Rivera, California. Typically, tree climbers can expedite help for cats in these situations, but the tree is too unstable for rescuers to navigate and experts have opined that a 135-foot bucket truck and licensed driver are urgently needed for Mikey’s rescue.
Do you know anyone who can help? If so, please contact CIDinfo@peta.org with details.
Please also forward this alert to all your contacts. Thank you for speaking up for animals!
[I can relate to this cat’s plight; One of our cats climbed up into a fir tree with no low branches and got stuck.I had to stand on the highest rung of our tallest ladder and reach up to him before he dared decend. It was harrowing for all… ]
Exposing the Big Game 