We have all seen the warnings on cigarette packs that remind us that smoking is bad for our health. But the negative consequences of eating meat affect more people than smoking does, and like smoking, meat consumption contributes to deaths from cancer, heart disease and stroke. PETA India has therefore written to the health minister of India asking that graphic warning labels be put on all packages of meat, eggs and dairy products sold in the country, just like the warning labels seen on packs of cigarettes.

Check out the warning labels to see the stark and compelling messages about the dangers of meat consumptions:

A mountain of studies links the consumption of animal products to India's leading killers, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, stroke and obesity. And don't you agree that consumers have the right to be informed about the health hazards of consuming meat, eggs and dairy products and how these products are linked to needlessly early deaths? 

Research has found that vegetarians are 50 per cent less likely to develop heart disease than their meat-eating counterparts and have only a fraction of the diabetes rate of the general population.Doctors are now prescribing a naturally low-fat plant-based diet not only to prevent but also to reverse heart disease caused from consuming animal products, and studies conducted by Washington, DC–based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and many other research teams have demonstrated the power of plant-based diets to reverse type 2 diabetes, too.

PETA has sent a letter to the heads of ISKON temples throughout India in advance of Janmashtami celebrations urging them to request Krishna devotees to use plant-based, vegan items instead of commercial dairy products this Janmashtami.

In her letters, PETA nutritionist and campaign coordinator Bhuvaneshwari Gupta explained that gone are the days when cows were raised gently on people's land. She described how cows nowadays are kept chained to cramped, filthy stalls; artificially and crudely impregnated using filthy instruments that cause the animals pain; and commonly injected with Oxytocin, a banned drug, resulting in severe pain for the cows, similar to labour pains. She further explains that mother cows and buffaloes have their calves torn away from them shortly after birth and that male calves are killed. The mother cows and buffaloes are killed eventually, too.

Wrote Gupta, "We know that Krishna devotees would never knowingly choose to support cruelty to cows and would be shocked and saddened to learn how cows on today's dairy farms are abused. Your words carry enormous weight in your community. We implore you to use your influence so as to spare millions of living beings pain and suffering by urging devotees and other festival organisers to celebrate Janmashtami using only cruelty-free dairy alternatives such as soya milk, coconut milk or other such items".

Watch PETA's India-wide dairy farm investigation here.

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