92-Year-Old Yoga Guru Appears In New PETA Ad Advocating A Vegetarian Diet

For Immediate Release:
7 January 2011

Contact:
Sandra Smiley 0207 357 9229, ext 229; [email protected]

London – Today, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Foundation launched a new ad featuring 92-year-old yoga master BKS Iyengar. The ad reads, “Energise Your Mind, Body and Spirit. Go Vegetarian”.    

“If animals died to fill my plate, my head and my heart would become heavy with sadness”, says Iyengar (aka “Guruji”). “Becoming a vegetarian is the way to live in harmony with animals and the planet.”

Animals on UK factory farms are raised in cramped and filthy conditions. They are crammed into cages, crates or dark sheds and treated as if they were machines. These animals are denied everything that is natural and important to them – things such as socialising and raising their young. Many animals are subjected to mutilation and are selectively bred for rapid growth, which often causes chronic pain and crippling. Animals are transported through all weather extremes and slaughtered in horrific and violent ways.

Eating meat is also harmful to the environment and human health. The UN has concluded that raising animals for food is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global”. Meat consumption has been conclusively linked to heart disease, strokes, diabetes, obesity and cancer. On average, vegetarians are fitter and trimmer, have lower cholesterol levels and live longer than meat-eaters. As Iyengar points out, going vegetarian does worlds of good for not only animals and the environment but also one’s fitness and well-being.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.