Ahead of World Vegan Day (1 November) and World Vegan Month (November) and as 63% of Indians are inclined to replace meat with plant-based options while 75% are unable to digest milk properly, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India is naming the winners of this year’s PETA India Vegan Food Awards. Riteish and Genelia Deshmukh’s Imagine Meats nabbed Best Vegan Meat for its tasty “chicken” nuggets, The Happy Nugs. In addition, PETA India has announced a special recognition and awarded spiritual leader and humanitarian Brahmarishi Mohan
photo mohanjichronicals.wordpress.com
PETA India Vegan Food Awards (other winners)
- Best Plant-Based Milk: Hershey India’s Sofit Soya Drink Kesar Pista
- Best Vegan Cheese: Katharos Foods’ Gooey Pizza Cheeze
- Best Vegan Online Store: Vegan Dukan
- Best Vegan Mithai: Haldiram’s Soan Papdi (Orange Flavour)
- Best Vegan Egg: PlantMade’s Vegetarian Anda
- Best Vegan Spread: Grabenord’s Vegan Chipotle Mayonnaise
- Best Vegan Ice Cream: The Brooklyn Creamery’s Vegan Chocolate & Coconut
- Best Vegan Ghee: Live Yum’s Premium Ghee
- Best Vegan Buttermilk: Happy Calf’s Peanut Colada (Curry Leaf)
- Best Vegan Chocolate: MilkinOats’ Chalet Almond Crunch
- Best Vegan Snack: Urban Platter’s Perfectly Plant-Based Cheese Balls (Cheddar Style)
“From creamy, dairy-free chocolate ice cream to meat-free chicken, all these innovative foods are making it easy for people to treat their taste buds without harming animals,” says PETA India Vegan Foods and Nutrition Specialist Dr Kiran Ahuja. “PETA India is recognising these winners for dishing up a delicious vegan fare and Brahmarishi Mohanji for making the country a kinder place.”
In a video on the subject, Brahmarishi Mohanji discusses the cruelty of the dairy industry: “We take the calf away from the mother. Mother is very unhappy. The calf is sometimes killed. [He] is unhappy. And then we are extracting the milk out of the cow. The mother cow is feeling injustice all the time. [She’s] feeling torture. [She] is not feeling happy. And that milk is coming into your body. Do you think you will have a good life? That is the cause of diseases. Because the vibration that is coming inside is creating diseases. This is exactly why I am propagating veganism.”
The consumption of meat, eggs, and dairy is responsible for animal suffering on a massive scale. Fish are suffocated or cut open while they’re still alive, chickens used for eggs are confined to cages so small they cannot spread a single wing, and calves are taken away from their mothers shortly after birth on “modern” dairy farms so that humans can steal the milk meant for them.
In addition to sparing animals’ lives, eating vegan reduces the risk of suffering from cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity; helps fight climate change by reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, and even helps prevent future pandemics. Covid-19 is largely believed by experts to have stemmed or spread from a live-animal meat market, and SARS, swine flu, and bird flu have also been linked to confining and killing animals for food.
PETA India – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.
