Blues Traveler News

(11/16/01, 1 p.m. ET) -- John Popper, the frontman from the rock band Blues Traveler, won't give you the "runaround" when you dial up People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animal's (PETA) holiday hotline this year at 1 (888) VEG-FOOD. Instead, Popper offers tips for a meatless Thanksgiving, and dishes out the details to get free recipes for holiday veggie specialties, as well as an informative vegetarian starter kit.

"You probably figure a meat-and-potatoes guy like me would be the last person you'd expect to hear on a PETA hotline," admits Popper in his recorded message. "But I'll tell you, the more I learn about how turkeys suffer before they end up in the oven, the more I like the sound of a meat-free holiday meal! (You don't get as much gas either). After all, Thanksgiving was meant to be a celebration of harvest, not slaughter."

A press release from PETA reads, "From the moment they're hatched, turkeys on factory farms endure filthy and overcrowded conditions. The newborns never know a mother's care. Turkeys are bred and drugged to gain weight at such a high rate that soon they have trouble simply standing up." In addition, the PETA release claims, "Skeletal deformities, heart attacks, and disease are rampant. Of the 40 million turkeys bred and slaughtered just for Thanksgiving alone, studies indicate that as many as 90 percent are contaminated with salmonella and other dangerous bacteria."

PETA's compassionate Thanksgiving campaign also includes an online essay contest for teens at goveg.com and a collaboration with actor Martin Sheen (The West Wing) and Turtle Island Foods to bring hot Tofurky (meatless turkey made from a tofu-wheat protein blend) dinners to homeless shelters across America.

-- Jason Gelman, New York

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