PETA Targets Nebraskans Leading Up To International Bacon Day

The animal rights activist group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is once more working in the Heartland to try to encourage people to stop eating meat. In this case, pork producers are the intended targets.

International Bacon Day is on Saturday, September 2, so PETA has placed sidewalk ads near Lincoln (Neb.) hospitals and medical centers. Many of the organization’s marketing tactics are in poor taste, and these are no exception. They depict a dead person’s foot adorned with a tag illustrated with bacon strips and the words “It Seems You CAN Live Without Bacon After All. Go Vegan.”

PETA points out that according to the American Institute for Cancer Research, the daily consumption of 1.7 ounces of processed meat (less than two strips of bacon, it says) can increase a person’s risk of developing colorectal cancer by 21%.

Keep In Mind
The American Institute for Cancer Research is NOT associated with the respected American Cancer Society. In fact, upon further research, the American Institute for Cancer Research has a Charity Navigator (CN) rating of 1 out of 4, and the comments about it on CN are overwhelmingly negative.

To make PETA’s credibility problem worse, the AICR report was not related to colon cancer research. Rather, it referred to a cancer of the lower stomach, which is considerably less common. It was the World Health Organization that tied processed meats to colon cancer. Yet, even in that report, despite screaming headlines by mainstream media, the risk is small, as Kurt Straif, head of the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, said in a news release.

“For an individual, the risk of developing colorectal cancer because of their consumption of processed meat remains small, but this risk increases with the amount of meat consumed,” Straif said. “This decision doesn’t mean you need to stop eating any red and processed meat. But if you eat lots of it you may want to think about cutting down.”

Back to PETA
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—encourages diners to choose Tofurky Smoky Maple Bacon Marinated Tempeh, Lightlife’s Fakin’ Bacon, and other non-meat alternatives. The Tofurky product contains ingredients as “funky” as its name. They include: Organic soybeans, water, shoyu soy sauce (water, non-GMO soybeans, wheat, salt, culture), molasses, maple syrup, natural smoke flavor, autolyzed yeast extract, salt, organic apple cider vinegar and starter culture (rhizopus oligosporus).

Sound good to you?