In September, Chop’t, a chain of upscale salad restaurants in NYC, is donating a portion of its profits to Every Mother Counts, a global maternal health charity. And that’s great.

Chop’t

But, before printing “EVERY MOTHER COUNTS” onto their take-out bags, Chop’t should have considered the fact its servers would be filling those bags with thousands of mothers who were chopped up and tossed into their salads. And that all of those mothers had their babies torn away from them at birth. Let’s be honest, Chop’t! Those mothers do not count.

Eating a salad for lunch should be benign activity, but when you toss animals in with your lettuce, it becomes an act of violence. That might sound extreme, but what is in actuality extreme are the factory farms that produce the animals — factory farms that harm our health, the planet and, of course, the animals.

When making decisions about what to put in your salad, please keep this in mind: pigs, chickens and cows are not ingredients; they are mothers, fathers and children who wanted to live and did not want to be tossed into your salad.

Graveyard

Please keep this in mind too: plant-based ingredients are healthier, less expensive, cruelty-free and delicious. And some of them, like seitan, soy products and mushrooms, have a similar consistency to meat, if that’s important to you.

Chop’t veggies

You can live without meat and cheese. In fact, you can live better without meat and cheese. But the animals cannot. They need their own bodies to survive, and they need their milk secretions for their babies.

Like the “Every Mother Counts” campaign at Chop’t, eating animals is a great disconnect in modern society. Almost everyone says they love them, but only a few abstain from eating them, in spite of the well-documented cruelty.

Sam Simon, the Simpson’s co-creator who has donated millions to animal rights causes since being diagnosed with terminal cancer, is probably having a bigger impact than he ever imagined. That’s because the media are not only reporting on the extent of his philanthropy but are also describing, in detail, the animal abuses that motivate him to give.

In Vanity Fair, a reporter writes about the plight of 17 captive bears whose rescue was funded by Simon: “The bears lived their lives pacing back and forth in the concrete holes of a grim roadside bear-pit attraction in rural Georgia, subsisting on white bread and soda thrown to them by tourists.”

Sam Simon Liberates Bear

In a Reuters story about Simon’s decision to purchase of a fur farm in order to permanently shut it down, the reporter writes that, as Simon walked through the facility’s “cramped rows of mesh-wire cages,” he said to the animals, “This is your last day of abuse. This is your first day of freedom.”

Photo: REUTERS/Mike Blake

During an interview on NBC, Simon talks about “liberating animals from abusive situations” and says that horses in the racing industry are treated as poorly as animals on factory farms.

These are the kinds of messages that animal rights groups would kill for (figuratively speaking) when they talk to the press.

In 2012, Sam Simon bought a $2 million ship for Sea Shepherd, which is being used to protect dolphins, whales and other sea animals from slaughter. If only the Sam Simon could have saved these salmon who, oddly, share his name.

When I stopped eating fish and other sea animals 10 years ago, I worried that I would miss one of the staples in my diet: tuna rolls. I was so addicted that I once bought a tuna roll at a BP station and ate the raw fish while pumping gas. Oddly, I didn’t miss eating tuna at all when I gave it up. Maybe my tastebuds evolved, or maybe the cravings just disappeared after a week.

Vegetarian rolls from Beyond Sushi in NYC

Eliminating tuna and other fish from my diet exposed me to fantastic options that I would have never considered. When I go to Japanese restaurants now, I order vegetarian sushi, which is delicious, eco-friendly, cruelty-free and less expensive than a sushi roll with someone in it. It’s also a lot healthier than fish contaminated with mercury and other pollutants that we dump into the ocean.

In 2009, actor Jerermy Piven ended his run in a Broadway show due to “mercury toxicity” from sushi. He experienced extreme fatigue, dizziness and neuro-muscular disfunction. Is consuming tuna really worth any level of heavy metal exposure?

If you still eat sea animals, please give vegetarian sushi a chance the next time you eat Japanese – to protect your body, the oceans and, of course, the animals.

Whether we like it or not, celebrities have the power to influence public opinion in areas that have nothing to do with their careers – gun control, abortion, poverty, disease and, of course, animal rights. Many have used their voices to advance justice for animals; a few have helped to turn back the clock.

Liam Neeson, for example, has campaigned aggressively in support of NYC’s inhumane horse-drawn carriage trade, attempting to convince the public that the horses have good lives. He has used his voice to turn public opinion against the advocacy groups, reversing in a matter of weeks much of the progress made over several years in changing the hearts and minds of New Yorkers. It is moments like these when we wish celebrities would mind their own business.

Then there’s basketball star Yao Ming who is using his voice (and his 7’6 height) to convince Chinese people to stop buying ivory, which has led not only to the decimation of elephant populations but also to untold sorrow and suffering for the hundreds of thousands of elephants who have lost family members. Mr. Ming’s anti-shark finning advocacy has cut shark fin consumption in half in China, and his 30 second public service announcement about elephant orphans could make the same happen with ivory:

Most people will remember Joan Rivers as a trailblazer for women in comedy; for her unparalleled work ethic; for her irreverence; and for her advocacy, philanthropy and generosity. But some will remember her as the poster child for fur. She wore – and glamorized – fur more than just about any other public figure. And that has been a major source of frustration and anger for the countless people who dedicate themselves to ending this most egregious form of animal cruelty.

Ms. Rivers gave the impression that she had misgivings about wearing fur. When people criticized or challenged her, she asked if they wore leather, suggesting that they were just as guilty. She also attempted to justify her fur by saying that she had rescue dogs, as if the kind deed of adopting animals gave her a free pass for other forms of cruelty. When she was challenged by activists at public events, she struck back, saying that her fur was 15 or 20 years old, as if wearing old fur doesn’t generate demand for new fur. As an aside, some of her fur was, in fact, new.

Fur Coat and fur scarf

In the end, Ms. Rivers’ love of fur must have outweighed any guilt that she felt for wearing it. She had many opportunities to do the right thing by renouncing fur, as her own daughter Melissa did in a commercial for PETA, but she instead defended it and, at times, displayed contempt for those who challenged her, as shown in this video taken in July, 2014:

Because of her fame and unmatched consumption of fur, Joan Rivers will be one of the faces of fur when society relegates this barbaric form of animal cruelty to the history books. Now that she’s gone, will she come face-to-face with the hundreds off animals who were tortured and killed for her vanity?