Although it sounds like a tongue-in-cheek message, the campaign has a serious motive. TheWall Street Journal reported last year that farmers in Virginia, US, were starting to ditch their tobacco crops in favour of chickpeas - the main ingredient of the Middle Eastern dip.
Tobacco is becoming an increasingly difficult crop to make sustainable, particularly in the US where government subsidies have begun to dry up and rates of smoking have gone down.
The rationale of the new campaign from anti-smoking group The Truth is the more hummus that is bought, the more money farmers will make from chickpeas, and in turn the less tempted they will be to keep growing tobacco.
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), a public health charity that helps people stop smoking, told i100.co.uk that the campaign’s motives are admirable.
The sentiment is sound. Not only is tobacco deadly, but it is also bad news for farmers. Conditions on many farms are very poor, there are usually large amounts of chemicals used to treat the crop and nicotine poisoning from Green Tobacco Sickness can be very harmful.
Many smokers are looking to review their whole lifestyle - not only to quit smoking, but also to improve their diet and eat more fruit and vegetables. So whether or not that incorporates eating more hummus, I think it is a good idea."
