According to a new report by the United Kingdom’s People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA UK), tea companies PG tips, Lipton and Lyons have been testing their products on animals in some pretty gruesome experiments that are decidedly not “100% natural.”
The report says that rabbits were fed a diet high in fat to increase cholesterol levels to egregiously high levels and to harden their arteries. Then, the companies fed the animals tea in their water, ostensibly to demonstrate that if the levels decreased, they could market their product as having health benefits. Rabbits weren’t the only test subjects; mice were bred with severe bowel inflammation problems, and then fed tea to see if it helped. And piglets were infected with E. Coli, to give them diarrhea, and I suppose the tea companies felt that their product might have an effect on that, too?
In any event, even if tea had helped the artificially, intentionally sickened animals, they were all killed afterwards for their trouble. It doesn’t get less natural than this.
And this might not be all. Other reports have stated that the Lipton brand uses animal products in their teas — like blood. To dye it the right color.
Food marketers are are eager to latch onto the latest diet and nutrition trends to promote their questionable goods. Some of these descriptors might be useful — such as low-salt — but catchy labels don’t tell us much about the nutritional content of the product. However, many consumers think they do.