Manchester Student Wins PETA Award for Convincing University to Offer Vegan Menu

For Immediate Release:

13 May 2016

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

MANCHESTER STUDENT WINS PETA AWARD FOR CONVINCING UNIVERSITY TO OFFER VEGAN MENU

First-Year Fights for Healthy, Sustainable and Cruelty-Free Food

Manchester – As a maths student at Manchester University, 18-year old Aless Donebauer felt something didn’t add up in her catered residence: the lack of vegan meals. The first-year met with the school’s catering staff and head of environmental sustainability to point out that plant-based eating is green, healthy and humane – and the university responded by expanding the menus campus-wide to include a vegan option at every meal, bringing cruelty-free eating to the largest student body in the UK. In recognition of her outstanding efforts, PETA is awarding Donebauer its prestigious Compassionate Action Award, which includes a framed certificate, a T-shirt and a jumbo box of vegan chocolates.

“PETA is recognising Aless Donebauer for leading the charge of young people who are eager to help animals and the environment by eating vegan”, says PETA Director Mimi Bekhechi. “Thanks to her efforts, her peers at Manchester University will always be able to find a delicious and healthy vegan meal – complete with plant-based milk – for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” – notes that vegan eating is on the rise. Orders for PETA’s vegan starter kits surged to a whopping 35,000 in 2015, and according to Google trends, UK residents are Googling “vegan” at higher rates than ever before. Compared to meat-eaters, vegans not only save hundreds of animals annually from the horrors of the abattoir but also have a lower carbon footprint and are less prone to developing cancer, obesity and diabetes. These are just some of the reasons why millions of British people – including 20 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds, according to the research group Mintel – are moving towards plant-based meals.

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

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