Paul McCartney Wants You to Ditch Meat For His 78th Birthday

Instead of jamming out to the cover of Twist and Shout by The Beatles on the occasion of Sir Paul McCartney's birthday on June 18th, the music icon wants you to ditch meat. It's hard to believe that Sir Paul is turning 78, but he wants to spread his message of peace, love and "stop harming animals" to the world, as he did ten years ago when he created "Glass Walls" with PETA, a film about what happens in slaughterhouses. His theory is that if everyone could see what happens inside these places, and they had glass walls, no one would ever want to eat meat again.

This birthday is a special one because it's the 10th anniversary of the release of Glass Walls, and McCartney says he will be celebrating when the world stops harming animals and eating meat. Sir Paul wrote a guest blog for PETA to get the message out:

"All I've ever wanted for my birthday is peace on Earth—including for the animals, he wrote for PETA. "That's why this year I'm urging fans to watch a video I hosted for PETA titled 'Glass Walls.' We called it that because if slaughterhouses had glass walls, who would want to eat meat?"

“All I’ve ever wanted for my birthday is peace on Earth—including for animals. That’s why this year, I’m urging fans to watch a video I hosted for PETA, titled ‘Glass Walls.’ We called it that because if slaughterhouses had glass walls, who would want to eat meat? The video debuted exactly 10 years ago. Since then, the public has finally gotten a peek at what happens inside the meat trade, and the demand for vegan food is sky-high. Whether you’re worried about diseases that spring from slaughterhouses, the animals who suffer terribly and needlessly, or the catastrophic impact of the meat industry on our environment, please watch this short video and share it with your friends.

Thank you.”

—Paul McCartney

McCartney, who's recognized as the most influential living band member in the world, is also a well-known animal rights activist. He has been a devoted vegetarian for 45 years-- influenced by his late wife Linda, who was an early advocate of the vegetarian lifestyle. McCartney also started the #meatlessmondays movement with his daughters, the designer Stella and Mary, a well-known British photographer. Stella McCartney has made her luxury fashion lines vegetarian and sustainable, and recently released a vegan version of the Stan Smith Adidas sneaker–proving once and for all that the apples don't fall far from the tree.

In the film, Glass Walls, seen by over 20 million people, powerfully disturbing footage demonstrates the commonplace mistreatment of animals on their way to slaughter, narrated by McCartney himself. The film highlights the manhandling of chickens and turkeys as he points out they are "the most abused animals on the planet," and a short snippet shows a slaughterhouse employee beating the animal to death by its throat because "sometimes they can be hard to kill." McCartney also adds that conditions in these industrial farms are overcrowded and animals are "jammed into filthy sheds by the tens of thousands and forced to live in their own excrement."

In light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the eye-opening scenes of animals packed together in unsanitary environments can explain how easily diseases can be transferred into the food system, a point that scientists have made in warning that today's farming practices could lead to the next pandemic.

In the past, there were significant amounts of influenza viruses founded in animals, and passed onto humans, causing widespread illness. Aside from the current situation, of the coronavirus pandemic, which was believed to have been caused by the transference of the virus from animals to humans at a Chinese wet market, other deadly zoonotic diseases (which spread from animals into humans) have come out of unsafe agricultural conditions.

The Avian Flu which came out of infected birds that spread it through overcrowded cages; Swine Flu which originated from U.S factory farms and made people sick in the 1990s; Mad Cow Disease which was a fatal brain disorder in adult cattle and spread to humans through consumption of meat through England in the 1980s and 1990s; and so on, all the way back to the 14th century, when the Bubonic plague also was known as the Black Death, was spread when rats that carried it bit people and the bacteria infection was deadly, killing 75 million people.

If these zoonotic diseases are not enough to persuade you to limit or completely ditch all meat consumption, McCartney asks you to "please watch this short video and share it with your friends." Consider it your birthday gift to Sir Paul who gave us all such great music over the years. He adds that  it doesn't matter “whether you’re worried about diseases that spring from slaughterhouses, the animals who suffer terribly and needlessly, or the catastrophic impact of the meat industry on our environment." Watch the film, below. Happy Birthday Paul.

"They say it's your birthday. We're going to have a good time.... " that is if you hit play now.