PETA India Renews Call to Fast-Food Giants to Include Vegan Options, Citing Bird Flu
This news release is also available in Hindi and Tamil.
Mumbai тАУ More and more people across the country are turning to animal-free food amid the bird flu crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, so People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India has fired off letters to McDonaldтАЩs, KFC, and Burger King India urging them to add vegan options to their menus, as they are increasingly doing abroad. The letters followed Beyond MeatтАЩs global partnership agreement with KFCтАЩs parent company, Yum! Brands, and McDonaldтАЩs Corporation to explore and roll out plant-based meat and egg alternatives for these fast-food chains as the global demand for vegan food continues to surge. The popular plant-based meat company is also reportedly set to debut its products in India through UAE-based food manufacturer and distributor IFFCO, a subsidiary of IndiaтАЩs Allana.
In its letters, PETA India points to a study by market research company Ipsos that came out in 2019 тАУ before the bird flu crisis and the pandemic тАУ revealing that 63% of Indians were willing to eat plant-based meat. And a whopping 61.68% of nearly 3,500 Delhi-NCR residents polled recently said they refused to consume chickens or eggs because of the bird flu scare.
тАЬMuch of the world тАУ many Indians included тАУ is turning away from meat, eggs, and dairy over animal welfare, environmental, or health concerns,тАЭ says PETA India Vegan Outreach Coordinator Dr Kiran Ahuja. тАЬPETA India is calling on these fast-food companies to accept the way the wind is blowing and offer the vegan meals that their customers here want, just as they do abroad.тАЭ
Bird flu, swine flu, Ebola, HIV, and numerous other zoonotic diseases are believed to have jumped the species barrier to humans at live-animal markets, on factory farms, at slaughterhouses, or via other places linked to raising or killing animals for meat. Like SARS, the novel coronavirus is overwhelmingly considered to have started or spread to humans at a Chinese meat market. And the first outbreaks of H5N1 тАУ which kills about 60% of humans who catch it тАУ coincided with infections found in chickens on farms and at live-animal markets in Hong Kong.
PETA India notes that in addition to helping to combat infectious diseases, people who go vegan reduce their risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, and cancer and spare sensitive animals a terrifying death in filthy, blood-soaked slaughterhouses. PETA India тАУ whose motto reads, in part, that тАЬanimals are not ours to eatтАЭ тАУ opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. The groupтАЩs letters to the fast-food companies are available upon request. For more information, please visit PETAIndia.com or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.