07/14/03 Lettuce Lady
Sexy American Strips to Her "Lettuce" Bikini to Expose Cruelty of Meat Industry
PETA's Lettuce Lady® Traverses the World in Pursuit of Justice for Animals
From painting her nude body like a tiger to spotlight animal suffering in the circus to baring her "leopard" spots to protest fur, Lisa Franzetta of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has been the center of media attention wherever she's traveled. The leggy, 29-year-old blonde once told USA Today that she would go anywhere and do almost anything to defend animals.
Now, Lisa, as PETA's leading Lettuce Lady®, is coming to Croatia. Wearing nothing but strategically placed "lettuce" leaves and holding a sign reading, "Go Vegetarian!," Lisa will hand out free vegan treats to Zagreb's, Karlovac's, Krk's, Rijeka's, Opatija's and Varazdin's hungry lunchtime and dinnertime crowd on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday from July 19 to 22, promoting vegetarianism as the most compassionate, environmentally sustainable and healthy diet. Lisa will be available for interviews.
"We're tempting Croats to turn over a new leaf with our tasty vegan fare," says Lisa. "Many people know that vegetarianism is good for you, good for the animals and good for the Earth. We want to show that it's good for your taste buds, too!"
Zagreb is the latest stop for Lisa, who once traveled to Hong Kong to protest the Asia Pacific Leather Fair as a "dominatrix," wearing a sexy "pleather" suit instead of leather. In San Francisco, she dumped a truckload of leather shoes at the Indian Embassy to draw attention to the cruel treatment of once-sacred cows, whose hides are being exported to the West. She was arrested at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York for dumping a bag of "blood money" on fur designer Michael Kors' head during his fashion show. Last year, she promoted vegetarianism at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.
In Croatia alone, millions of animals will be slaughtered for food this year. Today, chickens live jam-packed in wire cages in semi-darkness and their beaks are sliced off with a hot blade to keep them from pecking each other to death as a result of the cramped, stressful conditions. Newborn calves raised for veal are traumatically taken from their mothers and shackled in tiny, dark stalls where their joints swell from standing on slippery, waste-covered floors. At slaughter, many animals are skinned alive. The suffering doesn't end when the animals are killed: Consumption of meat and other animal products has been linked to heart disease, strokes, diabetes, obesity and cancer.