Billie Eilish asked her fans to reconsider eating turkey this Thanksgiving

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By stefan armitage

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Billie Eilish took to social media over Thanksgiving to ask her followers to reconsider eating turkey for their holiday feasts.

The 19-year-old 'Bad Guy' singer shared the message with her 96.4 million followers on Wednesday - a time when I'm sure many families were preparing their birds.

According to Britannica, turkeys have been a staple of the Thanksgiving holiday since the 19th century, due to the fact the bird was plentiful, readily available for its meat, and large enough to feed a family. Mentions of eating turkey by authors such as Charles Dickens and - more notably - Sarah Josepha Hale helped turkeys become synonymous with Thanksgiving.

But for Eilish - who has been vegan since she was 12 years old - she wanted people to reconsider their Thanksgiving feasts this year.

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Credit: Instagram/BillieEilish

Sharing an image of herself cradling a live turkey to her Instagram Stories, Eilish captioned the snap: "Turkeys are some of the most gentle creatures in the world and 46 million of them are killed every Thanksgiving."

The seven-time Grammy award winner added: "I know it’s hard to change traditions but just keep it in mind."

During her headline-grabbing feature in the June edition British Vogue, the teen revealed her reasons for opting to follow a plant-based diet, saying: "I just can’t go on in my life knowing what’s going off in the animal world and not doing anything about it."

As part of the feature, she was asked by famous fan Orlando Bloom about her vegan lifestyle, to which the singer replied: "I am vegan. I’ve been vegan for – damn – seven years.

"I learned about the dairy industry and the meat industry, which I already knew about… But once you know about that kind of thing and you see it, it’s really hard to go back.

"And now, even though I have lots of friends who eat dairy and meat and I never want to tell anybody what to do – I just can’t go on in my life knowing what’s going off in the animal world and not doing anything about it."

And just in case you were reconsidering ditching the holiday tradition of turkey for Christmas and subsequent Thanksgivings, according to OneGreenPlanet.org, turkeys are actually more intelligent than many people give them credit for.

The birds are apparently "really good at geography" and exhibit "problem-solving behavior". Additionally, wild turkeys can fly at speeds up to 55 miles an hour for short distances - which, unfortunately, farmed turkeys are unable to do.

Featured image credit: MediaPunch Inc / Alamy

Billie Eilish asked her fans to reconsider eating turkey this Thanksgiving

vt-author-image

By stefan armitage

Article saved!Article saved!

Billie Eilish took to social media over Thanksgiving to ask her followers to reconsider eating turkey for their holiday feasts.

The 19-year-old 'Bad Guy' singer shared the message with her 96.4 million followers on Wednesday - a time when I'm sure many families were preparing their birds.

According to Britannica, turkeys have been a staple of the Thanksgiving holiday since the 19th century, due to the fact the bird was plentiful, readily available for its meat, and large enough to feed a family. Mentions of eating turkey by authors such as Charles Dickens and - more notably - Sarah Josepha Hale helped turkeys become synonymous with Thanksgiving.

But for Eilish - who has been vegan since she was 12 years old - she wanted people to reconsider their Thanksgiving feasts this year.

size-large wp-image-1263136735
Credit: Instagram/BillieEilish

Sharing an image of herself cradling a live turkey to her Instagram Stories, Eilish captioned the snap: "Turkeys are some of the most gentle creatures in the world and 46 million of them are killed every Thanksgiving."

The seven-time Grammy award winner added: "I know it’s hard to change traditions but just keep it in mind."

During her headline-grabbing feature in the June edition British Vogue, the teen revealed her reasons for opting to follow a plant-based diet, saying: "I just can’t go on in my life knowing what’s going off in the animal world and not doing anything about it."

As part of the feature, she was asked by famous fan Orlando Bloom about her vegan lifestyle, to which the singer replied: "I am vegan. I’ve been vegan for – damn – seven years.

"I learned about the dairy industry and the meat industry, which I already knew about… But once you know about that kind of thing and you see it, it’s really hard to go back.

"And now, even though I have lots of friends who eat dairy and meat and I never want to tell anybody what to do – I just can’t go on in my life knowing what’s going off in the animal world and not doing anything about it."

And just in case you were reconsidering ditching the holiday tradition of turkey for Christmas and subsequent Thanksgivings, according to OneGreenPlanet.org, turkeys are actually more intelligent than many people give them credit for.

The birds are apparently "really good at geography" and exhibit "problem-solving behavior". Additionally, wild turkeys can fly at speeds up to 55 miles an hour for short distances - which, unfortunately, farmed turkeys are unable to do.

Featured image credit: MediaPunch Inc / Alamy