Help Animals, the Hungry, the Planet, and Yourself by Taking the New Year's Pledge to Be Veg!

Every year, more than 15 billion animals are slaughtered for food in the U.S. alone. Each of those billions of individual animals is denied everything that is natural and important to them: the space to take a few steps, love, safety from fear and pain, companionship, the joy of being able to nuzzle their young, and often even protection from the cold. That's billions of feeling beings who die frightening, painful, and often violent deaths so that they can be thrown into a bucket or a box or onto a sandwich.

In 2009, will you please consider the suffering of each of the animals killed for food and pledge to try a vegetarian diet for just 30 days?

For every person who signs the Pledge to Be Veg for 30 Days through the end of January 2009, PETA will make a donation to a program to plant fruit trees in an impoverished village where people go hungry every day. These people would benefit from the vitamin C and other natural goodness of the fresh fruit that you would be helping to provide. So not only will you be helping animals, you'll also be helping to nourish a hungry person.

The trees that you will help plant will also provide shade and shelter. They will reduce carbon emissionsand allow rainfall to soak into the ground instead of washing away precious top soil. But the connection between your diet and the environment doesn't stop there.

A U.N. report summarized the devastation caused by the meat industry by calling it "one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." By planting these trees, we will work together to mitigate some of the devastation caused by factory farms.

By taking the Pledge to Be Veg for 30 Days, you will be helping animals, the environment, and those who are hungry, and you even get to do something terrific for yourself—get more energy, cleaner arteries, and a chance to live a longer and fitter life! Sign the pledge now, and we'll send you great tips and resources to get you started.

You can join others who have signed the pledge by visiting ExperienceProject.com, the world's largest network of shared experiences! There, you can use the site's free online tools to track your daily progress on eating vegetarian, give and get support from others who took the pledge, and challenge your friends to get involved too!