The Pinay singer poses in birthday suit to champion vegan diet for the benefit of animals, human health, and the environment.

Singer Geneva Cruz stripped down for an alluring new ad for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia. The ad shows Cruz, a longtime vegan, posing in her birthday suit in a vegetable garden while clutching an armful of tomatoes, and the caption reads, “Go Natural. Go Vegan.” The ad is being launched just after the star’s April 2 birthday.

Cruz was just 15 years old when she decided to stop eating animals. Now a staunch vegan, she says, “For me, being vegan is not about the diet. It’s really about my love for all creatures.”

Animals who are raised and killed for food endure immeasurable cruelty and are denied everything that is natural and important to them. On factory farms, cows, pigs, and chickens are kept in crowded, filthy enclosures, which are often so small that the animals are unable to lie down comfortably. Many animals are forced to stand amid their own urine and feces.

Cows are routinely branded, dehorned, and castrated without being given any painkillers. Pigs are castrated, and their tails and teeth are cut or broken off—also without any pain relief. Chickens are drugged and bred to grow so rapidly that they become crippled from supporting the weight of their own massive upper bodies. Birds’ throats are cut while they are still conscious, and many birds are scalded to death in defeathering tanks.

In addition to being cruelty-free, a diet that excludes meat, eggs, and dairy products can lower the risk of heart disease, cancer, strokes, diabetes, obesity, and acne in adults as well as allergies, ear infections, and juvenile-onset diabetes in children. Ninety percent of Filipinos are lactose-intolerant, and avoiding dairy products can help people’s bodies work more efficiently. A healthy vegan diet can also help anyone stay slim.

Cruz says, “In addition to saving countless animals every year, the health benefits of a vegan diet are countless, whereas the consumption of animal-derived foods has been linked to not only heart disease and cancer but also multiple sclerosis and osteoporosis.”

Meat and dairy production also contaminates water and soil with animal waste. Worldwide, farmed animals produce 13 billion metric tons of excrement a year—that’s 48 times as much as the world’s human population produces. Each day, animal agriculture consumes 2.5 trillion liters of water—enough for every person in the world to take eight showers.

Animal grazing has been responsible for loss of topsoil and eventual desertification in many parts of the world. The animals destroy the land’s protective vegetation. Then wind removes the soil and converts formerly productive rangeland into desert. Forest lands in China and South America are being destroyed to clear space for grazing or to grow food for farmed animals.

A recent United Nations report concluded that a global shift toward a vegan diet is necessary to combat the worst effects of climate change.

“Geneva Cruz knows that going vegan is the best and simplest thing that people can do for animals, the environment, and their own health,” says PETA Asia Director Jason Baker.

“Animals are beaten, kicked, and stomped on at factory farms and slaughterhouses”, says Cruz. “Each one of us can fight these abuses by refusing to consume the products of the meat, egg, and dairy industries.”

Cruz joins a host of international stars—including Pamela Anderson, Natalie Portman, Sir Paul McCartney, Maggie Q, and Barbie Hsu—who have kicked the meat habit.

Photographer Niccolo Cosme shot Cruz’s PETA ad, and Bernabe Pacson designed the set. Cruz’s makeup and hair were done by Nina’s Touch.

For more information, please visit PETAAsiaPacific.com.

(Cross-published in Pinoy Power)