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December 16, 2010

Dying for a cup of tea?

Before taking your next sip of tea, check the label on the tea box or bottle because you might discover that you are drinking a cupful of cruelty to animals. The company behind Lipton teas has been testing (and paying others to test) tea—a beverage that has been consumed for thousands of years—on animals. The tea giant has caused animals to suffer and die simply to make health claims about its tea products and ingredients. Not one of the experiments that the company conducted was legally required for beverage makers, and regulators have stated that animal tests are not sufficient to prove a health claim about a product. 

In these cruel and painful tests, rabbits, mice, rats, and piglets were tortured and then killed by decapitation and suffocation, among other methods. Following are more of the horrific details about what happened to the animals who were used in the company's experiments:

  • Rabbits were fed a high-fat, cholesterol-laden diet, leading to extreme hardening of the arteries. They were then fed tea to see if it could reduce the lesions that formed on the animals' arteries. After the experiment, the rabbits' heads were cut off.
  • Mice bred to suffer from a painful bowel inflammation were fed tea ingredients in order to see if the tea had any effect on their condition. After the test, experimenters killed the mice by suffocating them or breaking their necks.
  • Rats were forced to eat a high-sugar diet, and then tea was given to the animals to see if it could protect against sugar-induced brain damage. Other rats had their abdominal wall punctured and were fed radioactively labeled tea ingredients through a tube in their stomachs in order to examine the absorption of tea in the body. Then they were killed, frozen with liquid nitrogen, and crushed.
  • Piglets were exposed to E. coli toxin and then fed tea in order to see if the tea could prevent fluid loss and diarrhea. As part of the tests, experimenters cut the pigs' intestines apart while the animals were still alive. The piglets were then killed.
Modern, cruelty-free research methods are available and in use by other leading beverage companies around the world. We need YOU to join us in telling the makers of Lipton to ditch its crueltea to animals and use non-animal methods instead.

Please take a moment to ask the makers of Lipton tea to stop this cruelty and join Honest Tea, Twinings, Stash Tea, Luzianne Tea, and other companies that don't experiment on animals.


Text from Peta2.com and images from Peta2.com and Google Images.

32 comments:

  1. aww :( It's such a shame how big companies exploit the most innocent animals. Thank you for sharing this with us.

    xoxo,
    eva

    http://purrrty.blogspot.com/

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  2. @Eva : Yes, it's awful, and even more when those tests are not required! That is totally stupid...

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  3. Wow! This is just stupid and dumbto hurt those poor babies! I don't drink lipton thank god, but now I have to seriously go check the one I do ugh!

    Btw I am deleting my blog and using another in a day or so. My new one is up if you would like to follow me :)
    http://lilporcelainrabbit.blogspot.com/

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  4. @~Deanna~: Yes, that is totally dumb. I used to drink Lipton tea but now that I know about this... I'm not buying some again!

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  5. Oh my! Didn't know that they tested on animals for teas as well! Terrible.

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  6. I read about this yesterday after Peta2 tweeted about it and I was so disturbed. I know I've drank their iced tea in the past but absolutely never will again! I think it's important to spread the word so that it will cause less people to buy it and therefore give them less money, since they don't deserve any for their disgusting practices.

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  7. I agree. At today's day and age, the science has advantanced where there is absolutely no excuse to test on animals!!!! I love tea, but have only bought lipton a few times, but will not now! Thank you for sharing.

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  8. @Helena (XOXO Parisky) : I didn't know this either, and I would have never suspected that!

    @Jennifer : I'm disturbed, too. I mean, it's tea, a natural beverage that has been around for DECADES! Humans are sooo stupid...

    @Ansa: I totally agree with you.

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  9. Je bois juste du Kusmi Tea ou David's tea! Phew!

    Tu m'en apprends une bonne, jamais je n'aurais cru qu'on teste sur des animaux pour..du thé..c'est choquant.

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  10. C'est juste consternant! Déjà les tests de produits cosmétiques sont impardonnables mais là on atteint des sommets dans la cruauté gratuite!

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  11. Thanks for the comment! I hope tea companies will stop this!

    thatssofletch.blogspot.com

    xo, Jay

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  12. Personally, as a scientist, I know that these methods of killing the animals are the most humane and pain free. The people who do the killing are specially trained and do their best to protect the animals. (please don't have a go at me, I've never done animal testing myself, we just had to learn about it)

    However, I don't see why it's necessary for scientists to investigate the properties of TEA?! As you said, it's been around for thousands of years and we already know the benefits it has and we really don't need to test that on poor little animals. I understand why we need to test new cancer drugs on animals because we don't want a repeat of the elephant man trials a few years ago, but TEA?! That's as mad as testing lipstick on animals - we know which chemicals would be poisonous to humans and we don't put them in lipstick in the first place so why do we need to test it? Thanks for bringing these experiments to our attention xxx

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  13. Wow, this is highly disturbing :( while I don't drink Tea, my Mom is an avid tea drinker, and I had no idea this kind of thing was going on. This is absolutely disgusting.

    Thank You so much for this post, and informing people of what Lipton does. I honestly had no idea someting like tea would be tested on animals.

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  14. @luckiebeauty : Moi j'achetais du thé vert Lipton, mais j'arrête ça. C'est complètement ridicule, franchement!

    @Mei Ling: Je suis tout à fait d'accord! Pour du thé, c'est encore plus stupide!

    @Jay Fletch: I hope, too )=

    @Lauren: Don't you think the most human and pain free methods of kjilling animals would be to euthanazie them? I do. But yes, I absolutely don't get the point of testing on animals for tea, a beverage that has been around for decades!

    @Jessica Autumn : I had no idea either!

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  15. o.o oh non... en plus, jaime le thé lipton =( je ne savais pas que ca existe les tests de thé sur les animaux... =(

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  16. @petitechouxx : Moi non plus je ne savais pas, imagine-toi donc! C'est complètement ridicule!!

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  17. Very interesting, I never knew.. Thanks for the heads up.

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  18. Tea is like the most popular drink here in Indonesia. A lot of people drink tea after meal. I hope the tea companies here don't test on animals. That would be so wrong.

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  19. oh shit. I love Lipton. Didn't know they tested on animals. And it's not even necessary!! This is so messed up..

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  20. ohmygawd, i can't even read all of this. the images got me =/

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  21. @Gaby - I think due to the nature of animal testing, a lot of the details are kept secret, but scientists do acually put the animals to sleep before they behead them or whatever else they do. The animals feel no pain or suffering which has been proven my neurological testing to show there are no pain receptors triggered. x

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  22. Je viens de traduire l'article de la PETA en français et je l'ai publié sur mon blog!

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  23. @Eugenia: I never knew either, and how could we? There's absolutely no need to test for tea!!!

    @Fifi : Yes, it's also very popular here in Canada, and it's been around for so long, so there's really no need to conduct tests for this. It sis totally wrong!

    @Isabel: I used to love Lipton too, especially their green tea, but I'm not buying some ever again. I still can't get over it.

    @♥ Raeven: I understand, it's so sad )=

    @Lauren : I understand, but I saw choking images of undercover investigations, and they speak for themselves. But I agree that companies like PETA may be a bit biaised, but still, how can you deny images and video proofs? But thanks for your comments.

    @Mei Ling : Oui, je viens juste de voir ton article et de te laisser un commentaire! Je suis contente que tu passes le mot également, c'est important que le plus de personnes possibles soient mises au courant.

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  24. I'm so shocked by this I had no idea that they tested on animals. I'm going to check the back of my tea bag box to see if my brand uses animal testing.

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  25. I'm so shocked by this I had no idea that they tested on animals. I'm going to check the back of my tea bag box to see if my brand uses animal testing.

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  26. thanks for sharing this post! i didn't know even tea bags are tested on animals!

    happy holidays to you in advance since i'd be away for a week :D stay warm!

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  27. @Cherries In The Snow: I had no idea either, and I agree that it's quite shocking! I mean... it's TEA!!!

    @Jennifer : I didn't know either z= Happy holidays to you too!

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  28. Oh god that's just awful and disgusting. I had no idea that Lipton was doing things like that to animals in order to try to make health claims about their teas. I wonder how in the world those technicians and lab people can do such a thing to an innocent animal....I will never know hold cold their heart is. I mean, I was carrying my guinea pig in the elevator condo the other day and some guy in the elevator dared to ask me if my guinea pig was kept for experiments. WTF?! I wanted to punch him for even asking me that because I love my pet so much and I don't know why someone would ask that offensive question. Good thing my hands were full from holding my guinea pig or else I might have really punched him.
    Now I feel like throwing my lipton tea down the garbage chute. I have twinnings tea and other teas so I'm glad to see twinnings hasn't followed along with lipton.
    Thanks for sharing this with us all and spreading awareness.

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  29. @Karen : OMG Karen I would have reacted the same as you did! But I might would have kicked him in the nuts LOL. Seriously, people are awful. But I mean... it's TEA! TEA!!!! A beverage that has been around for DECADES! And mostly are all natural, so why would they want to conduct tests? Test that aren't even requires? That drives me so mad!!!!

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  30. I can't believe that tea would be tested on animals, that's awful :( x

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  31. My heart just stopped when I read this post. Thank you so much for letting us know, I will never buy from Lipton again (who knew food was tested on animals?). I have two pet rats and they're the most adorable creatures.

    Valerie

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  32. @LilyLipstick : Yes it is )=

    @Val : Aww, I love rats! I've had so many and I agree, they really are adorable!

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