PETA Ad Tells Ryanair Passengers To Avoid The Fat Tax By Going Vegetarian

For Immediate Release:
24 April 2009

Contact:
Sam Glover 020 7357 9229, ext 229; [email protected]

London – Ryanair’s announcement that it may impose a “fat tax” after more than 30,000 passengers voted to levy charges on overweight passengers has inspired a new PETA billboard. The ad shows the belly of a “super-sized” man next to a row of regular-size airliner seats with the tagline “Don’t Pay the Fat Tax – Go Vegetarian”.

Studies show that vegetarians are, on average, about 10 per cent leaner than meat-eaters are. The meat habit can keep frequent flyers grounded in other ways too. Because the consumption of meat and other animal products has been conclusively linked to heart disease, strokes, diabetes and several kinds of cancer – not to mention higher rates of infertility in women and impotence in men – going vegetarian could save portly passengers money on everything from hospital bills and home defibrillators to Viagra.

Also, eating a healthy plant-based diet is the best thing that anyone can do to help stop the immense suffering that the billions of animals raised and killed for food endure.

“Having to pay a fat tax during a recession would be tough, so cash-strapped airline passengers with a little ‘extra baggage’ can save and slim by going vegetarian”, says PETA’s Poorva Joshipura. “You could say that a humane, healthy and slimming vegetarian diet is the only way to fly.”

A copy of PETA’s ad is attached. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.