Actress Alicia Silverstone and Grammy award-winning R&B singer Mýa back global initiative to: Put plants ON and #Take Pandemics OFF The Menu
On May 1st, Million Dollar Vegan launched their ‘Plants ON: Pandemics OFF – Global Prevent & Feed Initiative’ by donating more than 117,500 meals and household essentials to families-in-need, homeless children and veterans, and frontline medical workers across the world.
“When will we say ‘enough is enough’ and decide that eating animals is just not worth it?” -Mýa
The international organization best known for challenging the Pope and President Trump to go vegan for a month in return for a charitable donation of $1 million, is now giving $100,000 of plant-based food and supplies to both medical workers and the underserved across ten of the countries most impacted by coronavirus.
Million Dollar Vegan is also raising awareness of how pandemics emerge and spread through their Take Pandemics Off The Menu campaign, backed by leading experts in public health and disease prevention.
“Killing animals is unethical and obsolete, and it’s killing us too. We need to take pandemics off the menu.” Alicia Silverstone
Million Dollar Vegan, which operates in ten countries and has inspired over 130,000 people to switch to a plant-based diet this year, was established to raise awareness of how the rearing and consumption of animals affects the environment, farmed animals, wildlife populations, and human health – including the global risks of zoonotic diseases and antibiotic resistance.
It is backed by many well-known names including Hollywood actress and activist Alicia Silverstone, American singer-songwriter Mýa, Brazilian TV-star Luisa Mell, Argentinian rapper Cacha, and Indian popstar Anushka Manchanda — as well as renowned public health experts, educators and scientists.
USA: Partnering with restaurant Vinh Loi to deliver 700 food packages to homeless military veterans in Los Angeles with the support of NDVETS.org.
UK: Partnering with an East London charity to provide 3,800 plant-based meals to the area’s most vulnerable families
India: Providing 50,000+ healthy vegan food packages through various aid charities to slum-dwelling families and street children.
Ethiopia: Partnering with the International Fund for Africa (IFA) to provide 4 months-worth of food supplies to Hana Primary School in Ethiopia.
Italy: Partnering with local restaurant Soul Kitchen to deliver 1,000 meals to medical workers in Turin.
France: Partnering Les Bols D’Antoine to provide 1,200 vegan bowls to homeless people and caregivers in Paris hospitals.
Spain: Working with several local vegan restaurants to provide 700 meals to frontline care workers at Madrid’s hospitals
Argentina: Delivering 7,000 ethical food and aid packages to the most deprived neighborhoods in Buenos Aires.
Mexico: Partnering with vegan restaurants to provide meals to those in need in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Los Cabos, Playa del Carmen, and Mexicali
Brazil: Working in conjunction with Instituto Luisa Mell and Green Kitchen to provide 3,000 vegan meals to underprivileged communities across Sao Paulo
Million Dollar Vegan aims to actively support and care for those most in need during the COVID-19 pandemic, while at the same time raising awareness of how we might prevent another, perhaps more devastating, zoonotic outbreak in the future. In this, they are backed and guided by experts, including Dr. Michael Greger (public health expert and author of Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching), Dr. Neal Barnard (President of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine), Dr. Peter Li (Associate Professor of East Asian Politics), Dr. Aysha Akhtar (neurologist and author of Animals and Public Health), Dr. T Colin Campbell (Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry, Cornell University), and Dr. Ariel Kraselnik (cardiologist).
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases come from animals.
Dr Neal Barnard states, “Getting animals off our collective plate would go a long way toward preventing future pandemics, and would improve our health and our environment at the same time.”
Dr. Michael Greger explains, “We can take steps to prevent the next pandemic and, to do so, we need look no further than our own plates. There are no prions in plants; you can’t get coronaviruses from cauliflower, and there’s no flu in falafel production.”
While scientists make the connection between pandemics and our treatment of animals, nutritionists and doctors are also sharing research that indicates eating plant-based foods may help strengthen and support our immune systems. One study found that within two weeks of a fruit- and veggie-deficient diet, immune function plummeted.
Dr. Campbell, of the Centre for Nutritional Studies states, “A whole foods plant-based diet can prevent, perhaps even reverse, the chronic degenerative diseases which make older individuals more susceptible to COVID-19 while simultaneously increasing immunity by inactivating the COVID-19 itself.”
Million Dollar Vegan says there has never been a more important time for people to re-evaluate their relationship with animals, to make the switch to a plant-based diet, and to join their global campaign to #TakePandemicsOffTheMenu.
Director of Million Dollar Vegan, Naomi Hallum says, “The coronavirus pandemic is a global tragedy, but it isn’t the first pandemic we’ve faced, and it isn’t going to be our last, unless we learn our lessons. If we continue to stress wild animals by decimating their habitats and caging them in
markets – and if we continue to mass produce domesticated animals inside squalid factory farms, pumping them full of antibiotics and transporting them long distances – there will be no avoiding a future outbreak that could cost millions of people their lives.
“COVID-19 is a harsh reminder that all life on Earth is connected and that if we wish to preserve our own lives then we must also strive to preserve the lives of others.”
