Someone from PETA emailed us this morning to say the organization was sorry it had offended so many people with its misleading and malicious “Save the Whales. Lose the Blubber: Go Vegetarian” billboard in Jacksonville, Fla.
No wait, of course they didn’t. PETA was as self-satisfied as ever and repeated its original insult to overweight people in announcing that the billboard will be replaced by an even more smug message:
Ever since placing our original ad, which showed a woman whose “blubber” was spilling out of her swimsuit, we’ve been inundated with calls and e-mails of support from people who want to take our 30-day Pledge to Be Veg. Oregon mom-of-six Ali Bond-Smith is one of the many motivated people, and here’s what she has to say:
Many feel the billboards were cruel to the obese and uncalled for on PETA’s part. I think what happens in the lives of ‘meat animals’ is cruel. … I’m ready to take your 30-day no-meat challenge. … I’d be willing to weigh in before and after a month of no meat and indeed see if losing the meat has helped me begin to lose the blubber.
Since it has been proved that vegetarians weigh about 10 to 20 pounds less than meat eaters do and that a vegetarian diet can lower your risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and a slew of other ailments, Ali’s going to make an enormous impact on her health, as well as on the lives of animals.
So: Cruel to people, AOK. Cruel to animals, death to Poochy. Not to mention, I just don’t see PETA getting “inundated with calls and e-mails of support” from people they very publicly called fatties.
As I pointed out when this story first broke, PETA has no business giving dietary advice to anyone. And despite its “proven” claim that vegetarians are thinner than omnivores, that’s not how weight control works. It could just be that vegetarians are more likely to have eating disorders (at least logically, it follows). Besides, plenty of people know enough fat vegetarians to mean that no one’s buying this bunk.
Fact: PETA’s main concern is not with human health, it’s with convincing people not to eat meat — and not caring how many people they piss off in the process.
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I just figured it out.
Ingrid Newkirk is Capt. Peter “Wrongway” Peachfuzz in disguise.
Is their test case eating cheese? Eggs? Gotta wonder HOW veg is veg enough. And anything you do to yourself nutritionally for 30 days isn’t gonna kill you, or make you wonderfully healthy.
Right, I’d like to see the list of the phone calls made to PETA posted publicly, can they quantify “inundated” for us please?. And “Oregon mom-of-six Ali Bond-Smith” must already be a member of PETA, I’m guessing. :-p
So the bottom line is, they’re just saying nanny-nanny-boo-boo to the people with “blubber” who they say didn’t like the billboard?
Just a few thoughts that occurred kinda randomly to me when I read this article.
1. Vegetarians probably are on average 10-20lbs lighter than a meat eater – without animal protein to build and maintain muscle, I’d probably shave that much in a few months. I wouldn’t be any healthier though, I’d be losing muscle and keeping fat.
2. I can’t honestly say I value the opinion/input of someone who changes their life based on a billboard. Congratulations Ali Bond-Smith, you’re so weak-willed that a few words scrawled on a piece of canvas by some faceless ad agency shook your convictions to the core. Lets just hope you never have to stand up to interrogation with willpower like that.
3. I wonder if they’ll ever quantify how much of that inundation of support came from their own previously brainwashed members? I would also like to see the percentages of support e-mails vs. people disgusted with the campaign – but alas, propaganda doesn’t work that way.
Scott, remember that for PETA, any publicity = good publicity, even email inboxes flooded with anger and cursing. Heck, they’re probably thrilled we’re gnashing our teeth over here at Deceiver.
I’m not gnashing my teeth, exactly; I’m rolling my eyes hard enough to make my head move. There’s not much need to revile PETA as arrogant, ignorant, hypocritical horse’s asses when they’re working day and night to make that very fact clear to everyone, without my help.
Scott, your point #2 is my favorite. It’s like she’s changing religions, based on a bumper sticker. One of these days, her dog will tell her to behead someone, and she’ll listen to that, too.
Scott, I agree with you completely on the muscle mass issue. Hell, my twiggy ass can lose ten pounds in a month, sure. But it’ll mostly be muscle, so I’ll be much less healthy, and I’ll end up looking like Veruca Salt meets Olsen twin.
Wait, Beige….are you saying that I SHOULDN’T run naked through the rainforest to become one with nature because a t-shirt told me to?
….oops.
I meant Violet, not Veruca Salt.
I probably have enough Veruca Salt-ishness already.
I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t use proper grammar in a blog they write for “work”. It is PROVEN as Holly wrote, not PROVED. Also, as Carolyn and Pearce point out, 30 days is not an adequate test period. Ask a real doctor, they will tell you that 1 to 2 pounds a week is healthy, sustainable weight loss. Any additional weight is more likely being lost because of extreme eating behaviors/patterns/calorie reduction, and will probably come back. People aren’t good at drastic behavioral changes, that is why incremental change is usually urged in any situation! Not to mention the likely nutritional imbalance from drastic changes (and cutting out whole categories of food). There is no such thing as a complete non-animal-sourced protein! Go vegetarian if you like, but plan your food REALLY carefully and well. Of course, that really goes for everyone, since most of us eat poorly (myself included at the front of the line). Do you think that the PETA support will follow up and make sure that people are eating balanced diets? My guess is that they will be too busy recruiting puppy killers and passing out maps to the nearest Piggly Wiggly dumpsters.
Scott, I want to see the ratio of hate to support contact as well. Ten bucks says it is close to the ratio of animals that PETA places in home to animals that PETA places in dumpsters.
Not to mention, they don’t specify exactly what a newly vegetarian would be eating to lose 10-20 lbs. They could stop eating meat and supplement it all with grains/breads, and gain a ton.
Does this mean I have to get rid of my “No Fat Chicks” bumper sticker?
AllyKat,
“There is no such thing as a complete non-animal-sourced protein”
Not that I’m particularly fond of veganism or vegetarianism, but I wouldn’t feel right if I pointed out all the faults in there arguments while ignoring what precious few are found on the other side. There are something like six known plant based sources of complete protein with one of them being soy. The others are amaranth grain, hemp seed, quinoa, buckwheat, and a couple types of blue-green algae. I think only two, but I’ll lump them together. They’re Aphanizomenon flosa-aquae and spirulina. However, of those two, the spirulina is pretty much only used in supplements and the other has some toxic forms so isn’t recommended. As for the others, quinoa pretty much needs to be processed or it pretty much tastes awful and is mildly toxic due to a coating it has (therefor, that throws out good old fashioned “organic” sources of the stuff), soy has its well-known estrogen compounds that make it unsuitable for males and any females who begin regular consumption of it after puberty (if beginning before then, it can actually reduce cancer rates, but will increase them if begun after). Buckwheat can be used in a few things like many kinds of Asian noodles and some breads and even in beer to make a gluten-free variety, so buckwheat gets a thumbs up from me. Amaranth and hemp also have a few good uses with little shortcomings. However, one might notice that most of those are grains and thus have a high amount of starch and carbs. Also, although technically complete, they all have much lower PDCAAS values (a scale based on bioavailability) than animal sources. Nevertheless, although it’s much healthier to have a balanced diet rather than a vegan or vegetarian one, should somebody refuse to listen to reason and try to maintain such diets anyway, I would recommend incorporating good quantities of all of those grains. For other people out there, milk, casein (like in cheeses), whey, and egg whites all have a 1/1 on the PDCAAS scale. And I will admit that soy is fairly high at a .91 (only slightly lower than beef) and it’s isolate is a 1/1. Still, be somewhat sparing of soy unless you’re a prepubescent female. Oh. The exact PDCAAS values I had to get from wikipedia since it’s been about a year since I had biochemisty classes. I don’t think that’s something somebody would skew them for fun, but you never know.
I want to see the documentation on the endorsements.
Pasta, that’s correct. And you must listen to Queen’s song 10 times a day. You know the one.
To all the people in this post and the last one about the whale billboard who were offended by it because they are/have been “struggling with their weight”. Here’s a surefire way to lose some excess poundage without having to go veg like a petard:
Eat Less.
@ Hmmm…
I stand corrected.
It has been a little while since I read about complete protein sources, so perhaps I was thinking of the lower values on that scale. Either way, I think I will take some milk and eggs over toxic algae and poisonous quinoa. Eeek!
Pffft. Whatever. I am not going to go 30 days without eating meat, even if I did need to lose weight.
when i read the beginning of this, i went WTF PETA EMAILED DECEIVER? the world is ending! haha
I am losing weight because I am following what my doctor told me to do – eat less and work out more. And guess what? Eat protein like chicken and beef as soon as I am done working out to help me out. PETA has no right to tell us how to live. Okay to kill animals and offend people. Great. Next they will be teaming up with ACORN.
*LOL* AAW, thank you for re-confirming my beliefs about how much I would have hated life if I had taken that job at ACORN (they were recruiting HARD where I lived).
I thought it was Pasta who told you to do that.
I think I actually lost weight when I quit being a vegetarian – I’m a picky eater and there were fewer foods I could eat as a vegetarian, so I ate a lot of candy to fill the protein void.
Man, PETA would totally hate me – I decided to quit being a vegetarian because I concluded that chickens were stupid and if they were simple enough creatures that they could actually run around with no heads, I didn’t really care if I ate them.
When I was younger and stupider (although I suppose I’m repeating myself there…), I did “go veg”, and not just for 30 days, but for 90 days. Not entirely sure now why I would have done such a damn-fool thing, but I can tell you this – I didn’t lose an ounce of weight.
On the other hand, when I dropped all grains, starches, and soy from my diet (following the “paleo diet” as it’s known), I lost 25 pounds in 6 months. Sorry to inform PETA (okay, that’s a lie, this brings me great glee) but I was scarfing down meat at every meal during that time (along with fruits and veggies, as it wasn’t an Atkins-style diet).
A tofu burger just ain’t a charbroiled, right off the grill, juicy slab o’ meat.
“To all the people in this post and the last one about the whale billboard who were offended by it because they are/have been “struggling with their weight”. Here’s a surefire way to lose some excess poundage without having to go veg like a petard:
Eat Less.”
I’m concerned with the people with ED’s who may have been triggered by that, Lolwut.
GCB, I tried to vegetarian thing and it didn’t work. At all. I “relapsed” when I had a stressful job assignment, and eating a big, juicy steak kept me from freaking out and blowing up the place.
And as far as Peta’s concerned… if I was vegetarian or vegan, I would NOT be healing as well as I am with my broken leg! In fact, my increased calcium and protein intake has trimmed off some of the inches the gym hasn’t! If I was using a Peta-approved diet, I shudder to think of how much weight I’d have gained, or muscle I’d be losing! Not to mention, I wouldn’t be healing as well, either.
I know so many vegetarians that try to tell me how much better they felt when they switched. What they fail to understand is what the really did was stop eating fast food, processed prepackaged food, and started buying fresh food and preparing it themselves. OF COURSE they felt better and healthier! You could do the same thing, but add meat to it, and feel better and be healthier than the average person eating takeout.
Corellation is not causation, god forbid these people learn some science.
I’m going hunting…..for chickens and chop off a few heads.
What say you, Peta.
Too bad Ali Bond-Smith didn’t drive past a sign that said “Eat Foie Gras”.
I tried buying a lot more vegetarian/”natural” food for the past year because sometimes (more rarely these days) it’s cheaper than buying meat and animal products, and discovered that it actually made things worse for me health-wise. This may not be the case for everyone, but my doctor noticed I had low iron (in spite of all veg-approved attempts to get it without lean beef), the soy products royally screwed up my hormones (yay for nasty mood swings!), and sugar is sugar whether it’s cane juice or high fructose. To top it off, I didn’t lose any weight in spite of eating enough fiber to choke a horse. I controlled my portions, walked daily, and to show for it? I have back fat for the first time in my life. I look more like that PETA poster now than I did when I obeyed my biology and ate like an omnivore, which is truly what we humans are.
I offer you PETA’s true motto: “Open ass, insert head.”
Speaking of which, has anyone ever seen a medal-winning vegetarian (much less vegan) Olympian athlete? How about a vegetarian or vegan star dancer? I’ve met a lot of ballet dancers, but never one who could stay upright through rehearsal without eating meat once in a while.
You know if it wasn’t for peta, I would consider going vegetarian, but crap like this just makes me wanna enjoy the fried chicken in front of me even more.
@Beige Uh oh. Pasta is brainwashing me to get my clothes off – scandal!
Only if he’s Republican, Pearce. Otherwise it’s none of our business.
Anna, here’s an article on some Olympians’ diets (thanks, Google!). Everyone’s calories and foods vary depending on their training regimen but there’s no mention of vegetarian or vegan eating.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/diet.fitness/08/14/olympic.diet/index.html
As for ballet dancers, the healthy ones at least tend to eat lean proteins and lots of fruits and veggies since these offer lots of energy with little fat. Unfortunately there are also many who live on cigarettes, diet pills and the occasional Hershey bar.
In other news today, PETA bought shares in Talbot’s (clothing store chain in Northeast) in order to protest its use of Australian wool:
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssRetailApparelAccessories/idUSN2454096320090824?dlbk
Apparently you can own less than $4000 worth of stock but still get to talk at the annual meeting. It’s too bad PETA isn’t publicly traded; we could each pony up $5 and Simon or Holly could go pound their *sses.
I think we should be able to smack them for free.
What a waste of funds. Even if it gives PETA a platform to spout its usual nonsense, they are still owning and supporting the store. Morons.
Do you think we could band together, buy some Talbots stock, and then go to the meeting to heckle PETA?
I will volunteer $5 toward the buy Talbots stock and heckle PETA plan.
I would prefer to have the members in a Whack a mole game. I would use up all my money smacking them hard and often
Let me let you in on something you ALREADY know…..being a veg sucks. I gave up meat 3 years ago and immediately gained 30lbs. Of course, eating delicious cake and potatoes in the place of delicious chicken and steak can do that to a gal. I simply had to learn the art of balance and healthy eating….just like anyone else. but let me tell ya, this shit is hard, my husband and daughter still eat meat, and it looks scrumpt-a-licious!! I hate Peta….I gave up meat for my personal beliefs/religion.
Btw, I just need to tell you all that losing weight while not eating meat is hard as hell!! This is something that takes conviction….much more than your own vanity.
Vegans/Vegetarians are generally control freaks. It only makes sense that many of them are really just hiding eating disorders. This is EXACTLY what an anorexic thinks. As long as I just eat plain vegetables, I am healthy. I guess that’s why so many of them die. And, of course, control freaks cannot stand people who are not willing to be controlled. That’s what PETA is about. Brainwashing, fear and a complete lack of scientific knowledge has gotten them a long way.
I just read a story about a woman who needed to take steroids for a serious medical condition. She had gained a lot of weight — the biggest side effect of steroids (a raging hunger!). Strangers now felt free to approach her on the street to tell her she needed to stop eating so much or to exercise. They just ASSUMED that she was a lazy pig who had no self-control (and were probably mostly those under 30 who haven’t experienced metabolism changes yet). Without saying it directly, they were telling her she was too fat and too disgusting to look at so they had a right to tell her how to live her life. Not only is she seriously ill, she is being judge by strangers who have no ideal what she is going through. PETA is only perpetuating the lie that all people are naturally born thin and will stay that way throughout their life as long as they eat as they say. They NEED you to completely restrict your diet to remove any PLEASURE you might obtain from it. Only then are you a *true* humanitarian. (Kind of like religions who believe that the true believers should always been meek and quiet or they are not considered truly spiritual. Just another way to control people and their behavior for someone else’s benefit.)
One question for PETA – why did God give us teeth to eat both meat and vegetables if it is “immoral”? Is he just testing our faith? Does the bible say it’s a sin to eat anything but vegetables? Aren’t they living things too? Are other carnivores (cats, dogs) “sinners” because they don’t turn away from their nature? PETA is just trying to rework the natural world into their own vision because they obviously think God got it wrong. Talk about a superiority complex!
…tequila is vegan….
Also, I’m not sure if members of PETA are required to acknowledge any type of higher power. Which is cool with me, but it makes that particular argument tough to throw at them. I just think someone should do the equivalent of throwing animals’ blood on them…er, to them. Which would be what…V8 juice?
Pearce, I know what you mean, but BB brings up an interesting point: PETA is the group who put out “Jesus Was Vegan” billboards a couple of years back. If they’re gonna go there, they’ve got to let us on the bus, too.
Jesus was vegan?
Huh.
So was it Loaves & Dishes or Loaves & Wishes?
Hmmmm… seems to me He liked to go fishing.
And whether ’twas God or Evolution, we’ve the meat-eating teeth either way.
Les Paul – Exactly. Without God in the picture, did the rest of carnivores evolve “immorally” and “choose” to eat meat? That is the only other explanation. I guess their teeth just “happened” to end up that way on accident and efficient/effective or not, according to PETA’s *logic* (OXYMORON), they should STILL turn away from eating meat, regardless of the function of their bodies.
If it is so easy to be healthy as a vegetarian, why is it SO difficult to actually get all of the nutrients our bodies require? In the not-so-distant past, people didn’t even have ACCESS to enough vegetarian foods to cover their nutritional needs. So, until farming, transportation and PETA were developed, you were just CHOOSING to live in a geographic area where you could not get your nutrients from vegetables alone, thus making you immoral without your even knowing it. According to them, people must even migrate & move around the world if they don’t have all the foods they need, just to satisfy PETA’s vegetarian doctrine. I suppose, according to PETA, the need for B-vitamins and enzymes is just another “addiction” we have to overcome.
Can you tell I hate both PETA and vegetarian/lifestyle-nazis?
Ah, Beige. I completely missed those billboards. And yes, I agree. If you’re going to imply that Christ was vegan and that therefore Christians should be vegan…yeah, that goes against a pretty sizable chunk of what the Bible says about him.
I wonder how PETA feels about the concept of transubstantiation, then? Is cannibalism cool with them?
Anything that even theoretically hurts a human would be fine w/PETA, apparently.
Then they should just cut to the chase and endorse cannibalism already.
WOW!….Apparently some of you guys lump all vegetarians into some “hippie, nazi, control freak” group and that makes you sad. Assume for a sec that there are some vegetarians who could give 2 shits if someone cooks and eats meat right in front of them…..what a concept. I cook meat for my family because that is what the like and want…I just don’t eat it. I also don’t preach to ppl or make stupid faces at ppl while they are eating a juicy steak. I made a decision for myself, because that is the only person who’s choices I am responsible for. Be a little more open-minded to the fact that all vegetarians aren’t crazy people. kthxbye
PETA and cannibalism hmmmmm. Didn’t Newkirk say in an interview that when she dies she wants to be bbq’d and served up on a bun?
Oh God. I’d be too afraid of catching her crazy.
Oohh, I LOVE it when a vegetarian comes down off the mountain to bestow holy words of wisdom upon us. Truly, I do. Sometimes when it rains the DirecTV goes out, and I have to get my comedy fix right here.
….but hippie nazi control freaks DO make me sad.
Wait. I forget. Am I allowed to call people and/or things nazis, or is that wrong if I’m fiscally conservative?
Pearce baby, EVERYTHING is wrong if you’re fiscally conservative. Absolutely everything, up to and including drawing breath.
Hmmph. *goes to sit back down in corner, mumbling about hippies on her lawn smoking the weed*
Rachael – I’m wasn’t talking about all vegan/vegetarians. Just the ones who think you should do EXACTLY as they say. They don’t believe you SHOULD have the freedom to choose.
Pierce – Well, fascism is right-wing thus it is pretty hypocritical to call left-wing people Nazi’s. If you want to be correct, liberals are “communists” – the EXACT OPPOSITE of fascist Nazi’s. I hope you are not one of those who believed, during the Bush years, that anyone who criticizes the president is un-American. That would mean that all of the right-wingers should be hoisted on their own pittard because they are doing the EXACT SAME THING they criticized the left-wing for. Perfect hypocrisy.
PETA is so ridiculous that they will feed the herbivores (i.e. “VEGETARIAN”) animals in the zoos at Christmas but will not feed the carnivores. Aren’t they animals too? Doesn’t PETA stand for “People for the ETHICAL treatment of ANIMALS? Where are the ETHICS? Maybe they should change the “Animals” part to “morally righteous animals”. Already 2 strikes against them in their NAME alone! I guess, according to PETA, they should also be allowed to cull the planet of all meat-eaters, making them extinct. I guess they would simply suggest counseling to the omnivors and kill them if they don’t respond. I would love to see what the world would look like then? We would be overrun with rodents and insects to start.
Clearly, the reference I was making went straight over your head.
Pearce I have a 20 year old son that looks like a hippy (even smells like a hippie some days). Long hair in a pony tail,hemp clothing,tie dye the whole 9 yards save but for his political bent. He is a conservative through and through. Believes that history will vindicate Bush and Cheney. Anyhoo he ran into some liberal hippies when we were in San Francisco a month ago – in the Haight district. They assumed as he looked like them he must think like them. He blind sided them with his views on Obama,Bush, the war, the economy etc. After the dust settled and they had resorted to name calling when they couldn’t counter with any logic he commented – “they picked the wrong hippy.”
….if he’s the one on my lawn, tell him to bring me some cookies, and we’ll rant about the free market together.
That could be him. He’ll bring the brownies
Who wants to play count the errors?
Not me. ’cause my brain hurts enough already.
Hello, well, i just wanted to say i am vegetarian, i don’t bother people about it, i think everyone has the right to choose if they want to eat or not meat, i don’t like people bothering others about being or not a veg, it’s something everyone chooses.
But one thing, i stop eating meat one and half year ago, and believe me, i’m not thinner, to tell you the truth i gain weight, not much, but i did, being a vegetarian or not doesn’t make you thinner, not eating meat can kill you if you don’t eat correactly.
I went to a nutricionist when i decided i wanted to stop eating meat, and she told me everything i needed to know about it, how this could bring me problems if i didn’t eat right.
I still love pasta and candies…so obviously i’m not going to be thinner if i keep eating things like this. There lots of things in meat that makes you body to work correactly, since veg don’t eat meat, they need to find these things in other food or even in special medicine (sorry, my english is not very good and i don’t know some specific words), so, if i’m a veg and i don’t eat this things, obviously my body would not keep up with the every-day stuff, and i will collapse and i’ll end up in a hopital like my friend did after being a veg for one year without asking for profesional advice.
Also, my best friend is a veg for about 5 years and after his girlfriend left him, he gain 20 kilos!
I hate that stupid billboard!! It’s a lie and offensive to people, including me; and i can cause problems to the ones that think being a veg is only about eating “grass”, like my father would say! It’s a very hard thing to do and to keep up with! I don’t trust PETA a bit!!
the subject of the formation of teeth – reflecting our omnivore state. I remember reading that big cats actually have such nerve sensitivity in their teeth so that when they bite down on prey they can actually feel when they sever the spinal cord and render the animal paralyzed and defeated. they don’t need to nosh around and crunch ‘em all up just tryin’ to achieve that, it’s actually with a surgical skill-like placement of their fangs. If it were so unholy to be carnivore or omnivore would God allow for this distinct advantage to evolve in big cats? I know some of those who believe in God can’t believe in evolution. I still say the development of that ability proves they were meant to eat meat.