What’s Cruel About Juice?

It’s fairly well known that animals are poisoned, blinded, and killed in outdated product tests for shampoos, household cleaners, cosmetics, hairspray, and other personal-care and household products—but would you have ever thought that animals were being tortured and killed to test juice? It’s true, and it’s a new low for an already atrocious animal-testing industry.

Some juice companies have been trying to hide what they’re doing, but we’ve done our homework. Here’s just a sample of what we found:

• In one shocking experiment, a juice company paid researchers to cut open dogs’ chests, intentionally damage critical arteries in order to induce blood clots, and pump the animals full of grape juice. Afterward, they collected blood samples by “fresh puncture” of the dogs’ hearts to see the effect of grape juice on blood clots.
• One juice company funded an experiment in which researchers infected 120 mice with H. pylori, a bacterium that causes painful stomach ulcers.
• Another experiment paid for by a juice company involved forcing monkeys to breathe in massive amounts of cigarette smoke and consume purple grape juice to see if it would keep the tobacco from increasing the stickiness of blood cells.

Tests like these are both cruel and useless, since attempting to extrapolate data from animals and apply them to humans simply does not work. Nothing can be learned by poisoning animals or cutting them open and pumping them full of juice—it’s strictly a marketing gimmick designed to advertise juice and fill the pockets of vivisectors who profit from animal suffering. As absurd as these experiments sound, they are typical of the billion-dollar animal-testing industry, which tortures and kills animals every single day and learns nothing of value for humans.

There is an array of non-animal methods available today that are sophisticated and consistently accurate. In the past, Welch’s funded cruel animal experiments, but after examining the evidence, the company adopted a formal scientific research policy and stated, “Given that scientific research capabilities continue to advance and evolve, Welch’s has recently evaluated its health and nutrition research policy. With the broad range of research alternatives available today, we at Welch’s have determined that we can remain committed to scientific research regarding the vital connection between diet and health without the further funding of animal research.” Juice company Ocean Spray has adopted a similar policy after examining the evidence against animal testing.

POM Wonderful, the pomegranate juice company, also halted its deadly animal tests after PETA launched a full-fledged boycott campaign against the company. The successful campaign exposed how ridiculous the vivisection industry is as a whole—torturing animals to promote fruit juice!

The Good Guys

Fortunately for caring consumers and animals alike, many companies have signed PETA’s statement of assurance that they do not conduct or fund any animal experiments. (If a company is not listed here, that does not necessarily mean that it funds animal experiments. If your favorite juice company is not listed, please contact company officials and ask them to sign the statement. If they refuse, please don’t buy their products—and please let us know!)

POM	Welch Foods Inc.	Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc.
Naked Juice Company	Old Orchard Brands, LLC	Frutzzo
Lakewood	Pomegreat	Whole Foods Market 365
Sunny Delight Beverages Co.	SunSweet Growers, Inc.	Safeway Inc.
Tampico Beverages, Inc.	Campbell Soup Company	Freshco, Ltd.
Cascadian Farm (Small Planet Foods, Inc.)	Wm. Bolthouse Farms, Inc.	Mrs. Clark’s Foods
Newman’s Own, Inc.	Organic Valley Family of Farms	Jamba Juice Company
granoVita UK Ltd.	Della Natura Commodities	Wild Oats Markets, Inc.
IN ZONE Brands, Inc.	Langer Juice Company