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PETA aims to increase veganism at BU

Boston University is among 100 college campuses receiving stickers as part of People for Ethical Treatment of Animals’ national campaign to promote veganism and vegetarianism.

PETA’s young adult division, peta2, announced its Million Sticker Mania campaign on Monday and has sent stickers that say, “I Am Not a Nugget,” to the BU Vegetarian Society in hopes that the student activist group will use them to advocate for increasing vegetarianism on BU’s campus.

The campaign is a lighthearted way to spread the message “as far and wide as possible” with the distribution of one million stickers, said Ryan Huling, peta2’s college campaign coordinator.

“When it comes to animal rights – just like with other social justice movements – it’s young people who are leading the charge,” said peta2 director Dan Shannon in an email. “More and more college students are embracing a healthy, humane vegan diet – and thanks to student groups like BUVS, that number will continue to grow.”

“Every person who sees a sticker and considers becoming a vegetarian could save over a hundred animals a year by simply leaving them off their plate,” Huling said in an interview.

BUVS members plan to distribute the stickers, which picture a cartoon chick, along with other pro-vegetarianism materials at tabling events and grassroots campaigns over the next few months, said BUVS member and next year’s president Greta Magerowski, a College of Arts and Sciences senior.

“It’s easier to accept the low price of meat than to question why that price is so low,” said Magerowski in an email. “We hope that the stickers will lead some people to start asking questions because, if they do, we think they will reach the same conclusions that we did.”

Aside from the ethics behind a veggie diet, becoming a vegetarian or vegan can be a healthy lifestyle choice if done correctly, said Elizabeth Jarrard, the social media manager for the Sargent Choice healthy meal program and a senior in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Services.

“You can also be a junk food vegetarian or vegan,” Jarrard said, warning against a vegan diet of Oreos and French fries. “We work to add more fruits, vegetables and whole grains into all students’ diets.”

BU Dining Services and Sargent Choice ensure that each dining hall has a vegan option at every meal, that all non-meat and non-dairy soups are made with vegan stocks and that every deli station has vegan options, said Sabrina Pashtan, Dining Services’ assistant food service director, in an email.

Many students said they agreed that BU is friendly to vegans and vegetarians and students can easily live vegetarian or vegan lifestyles.

“The meals are definitely available in the dining hall, so it makes it easy,” said CAS sophomore Amelia Wisniewski-Barker, a vegetarian for about five years.

Some students said the campaign will not affect them.

“I’m so used to eating meat, I guess, so it would be too hard for me to switch now,” said Alex Butler, a freshman in the School of Management.

Huling said he hopes that students reach out to their friends and families.

“We’re definitely hoping to saturate the country with pro-animal rights literature,” he said.

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2 Comments

  1. I think Greta was actually this year’s president.

  2. free stickers are awesome 🙂 Yay BUVS!