MISSY HIGGINS ASKS, ‘NEED ANOTHER REASON TO GO VEGETARIAN?’ IN NEW AD CAMPAIGN
Australian Chart-Topper Poses With Pig and Urges Fans to Go Vegetarian for Animals, Health and the Environment
Sydney – Missy Higgins has taken the music world by storm, and now she is charging up the animal protection charts, appearing in a series of ads for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia-Pacific which debut today.
Says Missy, “I am hoping the reaction that my fans have to these ads will be an intense one. I guess I’m hoping that it will make them think about what they’re eating and what they’re doing. I’m hoping that if they haven’t thought about this issue before, then it will make them think, and maybe it’ll evoke something inside them to do something about it”.
The ads feature Missy holding a rescued piglet named Jake and ask, “Need another reason to go vegetarian?” Each of the three ads in the series addresses a different aspect of vegetarianism. Regarding animal suffering, one tagline reads: “Never feeling the sun on their backs or the grass beneath their feet, unable to spread a wing or stretch a leg … animals suffer on factory farms.” Highlighting the health risks of eating meat, one tagline says: “E. coli, campylobacter, salmonella, listeria … eating meat can seriously damage your health.” Finally, for those who care about the environment, another says: “Animal agriculture is one of the largest industrial users and polluters of water … there’s no such thing as a meat-eating environmentalist.”
An ethical vegetarian, Missy lists among her favourite foods veggie curry, tofu and lentils. Explaining why she went vegetarian, Missy says, “I first became really against cruelty to animals when I was in primary school … I remember there was this one teacher when I was in grade three or four who just taught us all about respecting animals, and I really connected with it”.
Animals raised for food suffer enormously. Most pigs are raised in factory farms, where they are denied everything that is natural and important to them and where they are forced to live in horribly cramped conditions. Mother pigs spend their entire lives in sow stalls, metal or concrete enclosures so small they do not even have enough room to turn around. Sow stalls have been banned in the UK, parts of the US and Sweden – it is hoped that Australia will follow suit. Piglets have their tails cut off and their teeth cut or ground-down, and the males are castrated – all without any painkillers. At slaughter, they are punched and kicked down the slaughter line, hung up by their hind legs and have their throats slit, often while they are still conscious.
