While listening to one of my favorite podcasts, NZ Vegan Podcast, I was amazed at the solid, logical sound of a very young man, 13 years old at the time, who was on fire for animal rights and veganism. Not only was he intelligent and well-spoken, he was doing something about the injustice he was witnessing. Sam Tucker is that young man, now 14, and he is already an enterpreneur (having owned a tee-shirt business), a radio host (Food for Thought), a public speaker (at Animal Rights assemblies and on podcasts), and a successful animal rights advocate. He is also a snowboarder and a musician. Sam, as you can tell, does not let any moss grow under his feet. He is part of a growing number of young people who are making enormous contributions to changing the way people think about animals, about food, and about the earth. Below is a recent interview done with Sam:
When did you start to realize what was wrong with the way animals are being treated? When did you go vegan and why?
It all started when I read a book called Man vs. Beast by Robert Muchamore. It was a fictional book about vegan terrorists and one activist described the inside of a battery farm; I was horrified. I thought to myself, surely it can’t be that bad in real life. So I did some research and found out that it was that bad. I immediately stopped eating battery eggs and started eating less factory farmed products. Eventually I decided that, regardless of how well treated, it is wrong to kill an animal simply because you like how they taste. So I went vegetarian. As soon as I learned about the horrors of all the other animal industries, I decided to go vegan. It is only in the last few months that I’ve learned about the abolitionist approach to animal rights.
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