As forensic sleuth Sara Sidle on the hit series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Jorja Fox has had her share of murders to solve. But it doesn’t take a professional to figure out who the perpetrator is behind the deaths of the billions of animals killed for food every year - namely, the meat industry. That’s why Jorja - a longtime vegetarian - jumped at the chance to shoot a provocative new pro-vegetarian ad for her friends at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia-Pacific.

In the ad, Jorja stands over a police chalk outline of a cow surrounded by crime-scene tape next to the tagline “Baka Kinain, Baka Kinatay. Kinain Mo Ba Ito? Investigate Vegetarianism.”

While shooting the ad, Jorja took the time to explain that the more she learned about how animals are killed for food, the less she wanted to be a part of it.

“I was having a meatball sub one day in Brooklyn [New York], and it just clicked,” says Jorja. “I was in the middle of that sandwich, and I put it down, and I never had meat again.”

Why do Jorja and PETA think that eating meat is a crime? On today’s animal factories, animals are crammed by the thousands into filthy windowless sheds, wire cages, gestation crates and other confinement systems. These animals will never raise their families, root in the soil, build nests or do anything that is natural to them. Cows, caives, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese and other animals are kept in small cages, in jam-packed sheds or on filthy feedlots, often with so little space that they can’t even turn around or lie down comfortably. They are pumped full of antibiotics, hormones, and steroids in order to grow so fast that many become crippled under their own weight and die within inches of water and food.

People who eat animals also suffer. Consumption of meat and other animal products has been conclusively linked with heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers - all among leading killers in the Philippines - as well as arthritis, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s disease, asthma and impotence. Scientists have also found that vegetarians have stronger immune systems than meat-eaters and are less susceptible to everyday illnesses like the flu. Vegetarians and vegans live, on average, six to 10 years longer than meat-eaters.

For more information, visit PETA’s Web site GoVeg.com.