“Every burger, nugget, and filet served at McDonald’s was once part of a thinking, feeling being who valued their life, just as we value ours,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA encourages everyone to see the individuals behind the entrées and eat vegan in 2024 and beyond.”

Billions of cows and chickens live short, miserable lives in the U.S. meat industry, where they’re subjected to extreme crowding, routine mutilations without pain relief, a terrifying trip to the slaughterhouse, and a violent, painful death. Farmed fish spend their entire lives in cramped, filthy enclosures, and many suffer from parasitic infections, diseases, and debilitating injuries. Conditions on some farms are so horrendous that millions of fish die before workers can kill them for food. Each person who goes vegan saves nearly 200 animals each year and reduces their own risk of suffering from heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and strokes.

Columbus, Ohio – Diners at the McDonald’s on High Street might grimace at their grub this month as a cow, a chicken, and a fish loom overhead with a moving message: “We Feel, Just Like You.” The sky-high appeal, courtesy of PETA, landed near the Ohio State University campus just in time for the new year to encourage Generation Z—and everyone else—to go vegan for animals in 2024.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.  Until McDonald’s heeds the popular call to roll out a vegan option, those looking to turn over a new leaf in the new year can order PETA’s free vegan starter kit.