Pamela Anderson Asks Aussie Prison Boss To Serve Only Vegan Meals

PETA US Honorary Director Pamela Anderson has reached out to the commissioner of Corrective Services in New South Wales with a personal offer to help rehabilitate female inmates. Her idea? A vegan meal plan.

The suggestion comes after it was revealed that prisons would be implementing yoga and meditation programs to help reduce violence.

It’s no secret that what we eat plays a huge part in how we feel. If we want to foster an environment of compassion and respect, it makes sense to eat with those values in mind.

“Not only would providing vegan food honor one of the driving principles of yoga—ahimsa, doing no harm—by sparing animals’ lives, it could also help improve the health of the women in your facilities while decreasing long-term health-care costs,” writes Anderson.

 

“Numerous top studies have shown that a plant-based diet significantly reduces the risk of obesity and cancer and can even reverse heart disease and diabetes.”

If implemented, they wouldn’t be the first jail to serve exclusively vegan meals. Maricopa County Jail in the US state of Arizona switched to all-vegetarian food for its 8,000 inmates and reported a saving of US$237,000. In 2015, Anderson went there with representatives of PETA US to serve lunch to the prisoners, who were, she reported, “impressed by the freshness and quality of the food”.

In Australia more than 500 million land animals are killed for their flesh every year. While many prison inmates eventually return to a life of freedom, defenceless animals raised for food are condemned to spend their entire lives in misery, stuffed into tiny cages, crowded sheds, or filthy feedlots. They’re routinely castrated, debeaked, and dehorned – with no pain relief – before being sent to the abattoir, where they endure a terrifying and painful death.