Animal Aid

Each March, national campaign group Animal Aid promotes Veggie Month - a celebration of the healthy and humane vegetarian diet. In the UK alone, more than 900 million animals are slaughtered for food every year. Most will have been raised in factory farms in crowded, filthy, disease-ridden conditions, before meeting a brutal end in a slaughterhouse.

To launch Veggie Month 2005, Animal Aid - in conjunction with celebrity chef Dan Green (TV's Food Cop/Fat Academy) - has produced a glossy and stylish recipe booklet, entitled The Greatest, Healthiest, Tastiest, Veggie Recipes Ever! It is available free of charge to all enquirers. The booklet also contains dietary information from an expert nutritionist.

Going veggie is not only good for animals, it is good for people too. The World Cancer Research Fund has stated:

"Vegetarian groups have been shown to have lower risk of cardiovascular disease, lower rates of obesity and longer life expectancy than meat-eaters."

Dan Green, who was a model before he turned his hand to cooking, knows all about being overweight. Bad eating habits, stemming from a lack of knowledge about health and nutrition, made him a fat and miserable teenager. Says Dan:

"I create food that people want to eat that just happens to be healthy and low fat. I do not believe in diets but in a change of life approach."

Veggie Month is supported by thousands of libraries, community centres and health food shops throughout the country. As well as the recipe booklet, Animal Aid has produced an attractive Go Veggie bookmark. Twenty-five branches of the national bookstore Waterstones have agreed to distribute it free to their customers.

Animal Aid is also encouraging people to take the sponsored Veggie Challenge, which involves a week without consuming any animal products. To obtain an order form call 01732 364546 or download here.

Says Animal Aid Veggie Month Co-ordinator Kelly Slade:

"The vegetarian diet is healthier for people, animals and the planet!"

Veggie Month 2005 is supported by celebrity chef Dan Green, who has donated some fantastic veggie recipes, including those pictured on this page.

Notes to Editors

• The recipe booklet is available to the public free of charge from the Animal Aid office. Telephone 01732 354032, email info@animalaid.co.uk, or order online.

• Individual images from the booklet available on request to the media.

• For more information about Veggie Month click here, or contact Kelly Slade on 01732 364546 ext. 227.

• For more information on Dan Green, go to www.televisioncookery.com.

• We have an ISDN line for broadcast-quality interviews.

• For a copy of the new booklet, send for a FREE go veggie pack.