Bengaluru :

Beating hundreds of others, Bengalurean Kushal Hebbar has made it to the finals of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) India’s Cutest Vegetarian Next Door contest.

Kushal is among the 20 finalists selected by a panel of Peta judges, who took three factors into consideration – the contestants’ physical features, dedication to protect animals and reasons for being vegetarian.

Now, the public can vote for their favourite contestants. The two winners, one male and one female, will be decided on the basis of the three parameters as well as public voting.

Kushal, a final-year computer science engineering student at BNM Institute of Technology , has been a vegetarian all his life. “I love animals and wouldn’t want to eat non-vegetarian just for the sake of taste,” he said.

“On an average, vegetarians are slimmer and healthier than meat-eaters. And over their lifetime, they spare many animals the horror of factory farms, slaughterhouses and fishing nets,” said Peta nutritionist Bhuvaneshwari Gupta .

“In addition to causing animal suffering on a massive scale, eating meat and dairy products has been linked to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer and obesity. Also, a United Nations report concluded that animal agriculture is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems,” says Peta.
The winners of the contest, which was open to all non-celebrity Indian residents, will be declared on November 1

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City News> Bangalore / TNN / October 15th, 2016