Half-naked women or free gas, which gets your attention more?
click photo to enlarge
So, how can PETA use high gas prices and a concern over global warming to advance a meat-free diet for all? How about through the Lettuce Ladies? As you can probably tell from the picture above and the gallery photos below, Lettuce Ladies are, well, ladies who wear not much other than lettuce to attract attention to a messsage. In this case, the message is that eating a pound of meat creates the same wear and tear on the environment as driving a Hummer 40 miles.
This week, the idea was to have two Lettuce Ladies stand at a Lynchburg, Virginia BP gas station during lunch and tell drivers that by switching to a vegetarian diet, drivers could do more for the environment than they could if they switched from a standard car to a Prius. (It's dependent on a person's annual driving details to see if that statement is true or false, but there's no question that limiting our intake of modern megafarm meat is a move in favor of the environment). The two Ladies handed out Tofurky sandwiches and gift cards for free gas.
We don't have any pictures from the Lynchburg event, but we do have a gallery of images from other Lettuce Ladies protests from around the country. Check 'em out by clicking the images below.
Gallery: Peta Lettuce Ladies
[Source: PETA via Green Daily]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
stevefazek 8:48PM (4/30/2008)
http://www.petakillsanimals.com/
People should know this about peta. The owner of peta cares more about hanging out with clebs and money then animals.
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steven 9:33PM (4/30/2008)
Click photo to enlarge? That's a hoot! All I had to do was LOOK at the photo... More candidates for the AutoblogGreen "high-res" gallery.
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jmspearman 10:23PM (4/30/2008)
Sad to see a progressive organization resorting to tactics they learned from Hooters.
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jmspearman 10:33PM (4/30/2008)
By the way stevefazek, the site you are quoting is a front for lobbyists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Consumer_Freedom
Not sure I would trust a website started with money from Philip Morris, the tobacco company. They have no less than 10 front websites.
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Murc 1:34AM (5/01/2008)
jmspearman - lol, pa-lease.
peta is a pathetic company, people like meat, and nearly naked chicks holding signs wont change a thing.
last week I read that they will give 1 million dollars to anyone who can create beef, in a lab. a million! thats a joke, if they were serious they should of said 100 million.
and dont think this is the first time they had hotties go naked for their cause.
In google images, type: "I'd rather be naked, then wear fur" you'll get an eyefull.
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meg 1:47AM (5/01/2008)
sigh, i just discovered the horribleness of mass-market beef 2 weeks ago, and have been sadly without hamburgers at restaurants ever since...
but lettuce ladies just annoy me.
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meg 1:52AM (5/01/2008)
also, vegetables can give you free gas sometimes. especially cabbage.
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Luis 6:11AM (5/01/2008)
Way to go PETA, it seems now that treating animals ethically is even more important than treating people ethically, as for me, I'll keep on eating meat, hell, in my opinion some of the women in this gallery would use some meat every once in a while, hey, maybe they can try turning animal vegetarian, you know, for the ethical treatment of animals by animals...
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jim 8:19AM (5/01/2008)
The last time I saw a PETA woman, she was wearing considerably less as we passed on the sidewalk. We exchanges glances and smiles because quickly closing behind her were a pair of the cities finest.
Being decent sorts they only issued a warning after she agreed to put some clothes on. Later she was interviewed by the local paper and TV station.
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Kevin 9:54AM (5/01/2008)
"eating a pound of meat creates the same wear and tear on the environment as driving a Hummer 40 miles"
I wish I could say that I do both to spite those people who continue and insist that we should sacrifice ourselves and cave in to their desires. Unfortunately for them, I don't own a Hummer.
I've been down the vegetarian route, and it just doesn't work. Veggies are good, veggies with meat is better, but hauling the veggies and meat in your SUV of choice is best.
There are somethings money can't buy, but for everything else, there's mastercard.
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justin 9:56AM (5/01/2008)
Great post exposing the wasteful tactics of PETA.
1st, it appears they are wearing Romaine Lettuce which is 96% water content. They are wasting one of our greatest resources.
2nd, These are disposable clothes designed for a single use. What a waste of resources. again.
3rd, ?
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cncmichael 12:17PM (5/01/2008)
I just got a craving to eat a salad - with some meat on it.
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KarenRei 7:19PM (5/01/2008)
Justin: If an ad campaign is effective, the amount of resources used by it is almost always dwarfed by the effect. That's a fallacious argument.
Now, let me state for the record that in general, I'm no fan of PETA. They're often hypocritical, incredibly radical (they don't even like people keeping pets), and so on. But that doesn't change the fact that in this case, they're right. There was a great NYT article recently called "Rethinking the Meat Guzzler" which went into the energy consumption involved in producing meat -- especially beef -- and it really is as bad as PETA is describing it. The average American reducing their meat consumption by a mere 20% would be like them switching from a Camry to a Prius.
Change all the incandescents for CFLs you like, but if you keep up our abnormally high level of meat consumption (yes, it is abnormally high by human standards -- outside the arctic, throughout human history, only a small fraction of calories eaten by people were from meat), you're not going to make that big of a dent.
Switching to eating less meat can be tricky at first -- after all, our eating habits have been developed over our entire lives. Eventually, however, your body does learn to remap its dietary needs to desire for other foods, and at the same time, you get better and better at fixing tasty meals without meat and lose your skill at fixing meat-based meals. The entire situation reverses. At least, that was my experience (and no, I'm not a vegan).
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Jason parry 2:24PM (5/01/2008)
You guys like to flaunt their own ignorance on these forums.
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montoym 9:11PM (5/01/2008)
Having had a vegetarian girlfriend for a while, I can honestly say that Vegetarian do taste better :)
Though she is a vegetarian, she outright hates PETA and their tactics.
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