You have to hand it to the PETA people. They know the best way to getting attention for the cruelty of fur and their belief that meat eating is unnecessary is to get a naked starlet to talk about it. We all pay attention to naked people, especially if they’re famous. Maybe they should team up with that photographer who takes pictures of hoards of nude people in public.

In a PSA for the PETA promoting vegetarianism, Alicia Silverstone emerges naked from a pool with sexy music playing in the background. Her arm and leg are strategically placed to ensure a PG rating, but the idea is that not eating meat makes you hot and desirable if you’re a woman, and able to land hot chicks if you’re a guy. At least that’s what I got out of it.

She says in the ad that being vegetarian makes her feel so much better. In a statement on PETA’s website for vegetarianism, GoVeg, she talks about the cute little lambs and cows that she no longer has to feel guilty about eating:

Like most people, I wasn’t always a vegetarian, but I’ve always loved animals. If you ever have a chance to meet a cow, pig, turkey, or goat, you will see that they are just as cute and funny as your dogs and cats and that they, too, want to live and feel love. They don’t like pain. Now when I see a steak, it makes me feel sad and sick because right away, I see my dog or the amazing cows I met at a sanctuary. I’ve been vegan for 10 years, and it’s the single-most important and helpful decision I have ever made. Physically, the effect has been amazing. Once I went vegan, I lost the weight I wanted to lose, my nails were stronger, and my skin was glowing. I feel great, and I look better now than I did 11 years ago.

[From GoVeg.com via The Sun]

I’m a meat eater and I always feel guilty when I see little animals from species I’ve eaten, that’s true. We like lamb at my place, and my family and I were at a farm and I just thought how cute the little lambs were and felt sad for eating them for a moment. It’s like that episode of the Simpsons where the lamb on Lisa’s plate gets up and says “Lee-eehsa, don’t eat me.”

Going vegetarian not only has health benefits, it’s also much better for the environment. My parents are vegetarian because they know that meat production is unsustainable and uses much more water and fossil fuels than grain production, especially with factory farming.

Although I have a lot of respect for vegetarianism it’s not something that I think is right for me, and I don’t believe it should be anything more than a personal choice. PETA oversteps their boundaries a lot, in my opinion, and I don’t like how they made it their business to tell Victoria Beckham, a vegetarian, that she was unknowingly sharing her land with free-roaming sheep owned by a chef that were meant for slaughter. It’s not like the sheep were mistreated or anything, they had tons of space. They also bashed Michael Moore for eating meat and being heavy when he was promoting Sicko.

PETA does know how to get attention, and there’s nothing like a hot naked chick to make vegetarianism seem sexy. There are sexy meat eaters too, though.

All opinions are respected here, and many of you have quite intelligent and well-researched things to say about this issue. Past posts about vegetarianism vs. meat eating have resulted in some flame wars, so please don’t bash people for opinions that you don’t agree with. We are kind to each other here.

Update: Thanks to Best Week Ever for linking the video, which wasn’t available earlier when the post was first published: