Once the meatpacking capital of the country, Chicago has come a long way since Upton Sinclair’s eye-opening book, The Jungle. These days countless vegetarians call Chicago home. In November 2005, Mercy For Animals combined forces with Protecting Animals, USA to create a stronger, more unified voice for the animals. Today, Mercy For Animals is an active force promoting a cruelty-free lifestyle in the Windy City.

Within the past year, MFA’s new Chicago office has held anti-fur demonstrations throughout the city, conducted vegan outreach events on college campuses and concerts, held feed-ins, erected library displays on humane food choices, hosted dine-ins, and orchestrated other special events. With the addition of a new full-time Director of Campaigns who works from the Chicago office, MFA plans to further expand its thought-provoking campaigns in the nation’s third most populated city.

		In February, MFA launched the Vegetarian-Friendly Illinois Campaign to promote healthy and humane food choices throughout the Prairie State. The new campaign includes working with restaurants to broaden their selection of vegan meals, the production and distribution of The Vegetarian Guide to Chicago and Surrounding Areas, and the launch of VegIllinois.com.

Chicago, boasting more than 20 all-vegetarian restaurants and dozens of others whose menus feature an ample variety of meatless fare, has widely been referred to as one of the countries most vegetarian-friendly destinations. With vegetarian food sales doubling since 1998, hitting $1.6 billion in 2003, MFA’s new Vegetarian-Friendly Illinois Campaign is yet another sign of the growing movement toward compassionate dining. The Vegetarian Guide to Chicago is available free of charge at many area businesses, restaurants, and libraries, as well as at MFA outreach events, and online.

Mercy For Animals' VegIllinois.com online directory is another invaluable resource for the growing number of Chicagoans who are reducing and eliminating meat, dairy, and eggs from their diets, yet still seeking tasty, healthy, and satisfying meals. From Antioch to Winfield, VegIllinois.com features over 300 vegetarian-friendly restaurant and health food store listings in nearly 100 Illinois cities and towns.

Introducing Daniel MFA is proud to announce the hiring of a full-time Director of Campaigns. Daniel Hauff has a lifestyle marketing background and is a graduate from DePaul University where he was heavily involved with the campus animal advocacy organization, Students for Animal Defense. Daniel’s compassion for animals extends to his home, where he cares for a number of formerly homeless and rescued animals.
He will be working extensively on MFA’s campaigns in the Chicago area.

Get Active!
Mercy For Animals organizes regular vegan outreach event, as well as demonstrations, lectures, feed-ins, guest speakers and other educational events on veganism, factory farming and other animal issues in the Chicago area. If you live in or are visiting Chicago and would like to get active on behalf of animals, please contact MFA’s new Chicago office at:

		Chicago became the first city in the US to ban foie gras after a 48 to 1 vote by the Chicago City Council in April 2006. Foie gras, French for “fatty liver,” is the diseased livers of ducks and geese. Producers force-feed the animals by shoving thick metal pipes down their throats several times a day. These young birds’ livers can swell up to ten times their normal size in just a few weeks. The pipes sometimes rip through the birds’ necks, and can cause the birds to choke to death on their own blood or vomit. Investigations at U.S. foie gras farms found birds dead with food spilling from their throats and out of their nostrils, and necropsies revealed ruptured livers and throat damage.

Chicago joined fifteen countries and the State of California (the ban goes into effect in 2012) to ban foie gras.

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