With the help of our friend, Alicia Silverstone, PETA India has served up thousands of vegan meals in Mumbai, India. These tasty dishes not only save animals’ lives, but they are healthy for people of all ages. Children who form a habit for vegan cuisine have a reduced risk of heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, and other conditions. So for India’s National Youth Day (January 12), we treated more than 2,000 students at Mumbai’s municipal schools to a delicious, vitamin-packed “super-shakti” (shakti means energy) vegan breakfast. Previously, during the sacred Muslim festival Eid-al-Adha, PETA India donated vegan biryani to 750 children in seven orphanages throughout Mumbai alongside vegan actor Sadaa Sayed.
Healthy foods boost the immune system. So during the throes of the pandemic, with Alicia’s help, PETA India provided underprivileged relatives of patients at BYL Nair Charitable Hospital in Mumbai with 1,000 vegan meals.
Providing vegan food is one of our favorite ways to educate, inspire and show support. So PETA India offered vegan treats to the runners, volunteers, and other attendees as the Healthy Eating Partners of Pinkathon, India’s largest women’s run, which raises awareness for breast cancer and other women’s health issues. We also organised a vegan meal distribution drive to police officers in Ahmedabad, India, for their hard work in helping to stop the use of sharp kite-flying threads there. These strings, called “manja,” are used by people to down each other’s kites for fun but put humans, birds, and the environment at risk.
For all animals and humans, the planet is our home. So our friends at PETA US helped organize the ‘Pledge to Eat Veg 30 Day Challenge,’ which planted a tree for each participant through The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation. Not only did the campaign save animals’ lives by encouraging vegan eating, it also provided fruit and shade to a community.
There’s absolute peace and joy in vegan living. One feels physically and spiritually healthier, knowing they reduce animal suffering with their daily choices. In today’s meat, egg, and dairy industries, billions of animals are raised in vast warehouses in severe confinement. And in India, most animals are not even stunned before slaughter. That means, chickens’ and other animals’ throats are cut while they’re still conscious.
Why not join PETA India and go vegan? Every vegan saves up to nearly 200 animals per year, and there is simply no easier way to help animals and prevent suffering than by choosing plant-based foods over meat, eggs, and dairy “products.”
Other potential benefits of going vegan include the following:
- Slimming down
- Having more energy
- Being healthier and happier
- Helping to feed the world
- Saving the planet
- Thwarting future pandemics
Dr. Kiran Ahuja is Manager of Vegan Projects, PETA India. PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETAIndia.com or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
