Plea to Gordon Ramsay: Lay Off Animals, Not Staff

For Immediate Release:

3 April 2020

Contact:

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

PLEA TO GORDON RAMSAY: LAY OFF ANIMALS, NOT STAFF

PETA Urges Hell’s Kitchen Host and Restaurateur to Go Green After COVID-19

London – After hearing that celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has been laying off hundreds of staff members amid the coronavirus chaos, PETA has sent him an urgent letter with a simple request: reinvent your restaurants as fully vegan ventures. Last year, Ramsay was quoted as saying, “Vegan is on the rise – we’ve got to adapt,  and this sentiment has never rung truer.

In the letter, available here, PETA notes that “farms and wet markets – where animals are crammed together amid their own waste – are key sites for the transmission of diseases such as bird flu, swine flu, COVID-19, and SARS from animals to humans. The coronavirus pandemic is our wake-up call.”

Calling on Ramsay to think about the future and how society will want the world to be when this pandemic is over, the letter concludes that “this is a great opportunity to put your creativity to use to help secure the future of the planet and all who call it home”.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” – notes that, in addition to carrying a high risk of contamination from pathogens, including E coli, campylobacter, and salmonella, meat contains no fibre and is packed with artery-clogging saturated fat and cholesterol. Each person who goes vegan reduces their own risk of suffering from heart disease, obesity, cancer, strokes, and numerous other health concerns – and spares nearly 200 animals every year daily misery and a terrifying death. In today’s meat, egg, dairy, and fishing industries, piglets’ tails are clipped without painkillers, chickens’ throats are cut while they’re still conscious, cows are forcibly separated from their beloved calves, and fish are cut open while they’re still alive.

For more information, visit PETA.org.uk.

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