PETA doesn’t always go after the fur folk, the chicken or turkey farms, or the slaughter houses. Evidently, candy companies are also on their hit list.
Mars, maker of those yummy little nuggets of chocolate joy called M&Ms, evidently use lab rats to test all that yummy chocolate goodness by force-feeding them. I mean, c’mon; they don’t have to use rats. I’d be glad to volunteer to eat lots of chocolate. But then again … they cut open the little guys to see how the chocolate “ingredients” change their blood vessels.
This made me think about the Hightower column we ran a few weeks ago on the fact that there isn’t real chocolate in chocolate anymore. So if there isn’t any, and they have to do lab tests, what is in the chocolate that I enjoy so much? (And when do I start to mutate? Maybe it already happened, and no one wants to tell me.)
Check out PETA’s campaign here.
This article appears in Oct 23-29, 2008.
Mars also puts a toxic chemical in all its candy.
That chemical is called refined sugar.
Check the ingredients. It’s in all their stuff!
There’s also fructose, corn syrup, sucrose, glucose, and mucose.
Oops actually mucose is in your nose.
Hey Mari, you’re always so spot on with your commentary I was a little surprised to read this entry without there being a little warning to PETA’s assertions may have strong language bias and fact embellishment. I’m all for the ethical treatment of animals and PETA has done a lot over the last 30 years to reign in certain establishments that failed to think about how cruel, unnecessary, and unethical their experimentation was. However, and it’s a big however, PETA’s mission has gone on the same tidal wave of factual incorrectness and emotional drive as the republican political campaigns of the last 3 elections, with them substituting the republican fear mongering with pity mongering.
PETA has made positive change on many fronts and I applaud that. But even though their historical acts were just and important, and able to create change in venues where it was desperately needed, they now are less relevant in the arena of medical testing. The changes they have forced to happen over the last few decades prevent abuse and unethical treatment of animals in respectable institutions and companies. There are local, state, and federal laws that govern who can work with animals and define clear boundaries on how those animals are treated, fed, housed, and handled etc. and requires clear justification on what can be done with the animals with the animal’s welfare paramount.
This is not to say that PETA should not continue to put pressure on the research community. They still play a very relevant role on seeking out abuse of the system when individuals ignore the regulations and institutional policies that govern how ethical animal research is conducted. My main purpose for this comment is that the language used to describe the research is often a few steps from the truth, not false but a few steps further down the road than is necessary. If the research practices are truly cruel and unethical present the facts without words that promote false imagery. PETA have former research professionals in their core have them analyze the procedures and suggest what could be done differently to accomplish the same aim. For instance, if they wanted to look at the effect of candy on a blood vessel disease (atherosclerosis maybe), they would need to use a warm blooded animal whose blood vessels researchers know a lot about.
I’m not at all defending the practices at Mars. Obesity is a problem and it’s sad that candy manufacturers are trying to insert artificial ingredients into the candy to make us buy and eat more. But so close to halloween when Mars candy is going to be consumed by a huge number of kids and in a huge quantity, isn’t it good that we know it’s not going to cause a stroke or whatever they are looking for?
Who isn’t for the ethical treatment of animals? But be careful of the emotional language choice used in PETA literature.
Still love your blog Mari, but needed to say this.
Hugs and kisses to you Respectfully Yours – that’s what the blog is for.