What made you decide to start speaking out on behalf of animals?

When I was a junior in high school, my older sister Christina came home from college and told us she had become a vegetarian for ethical reasons. I had always thought meat was pretty gross (my mom used to get so mad at me for picking out veins from chicken at the dinner table!), but I had learned to eat meat and assumed it was the natural, healthy thing to do. I thought my sister was pretty cool, though, so I decided I wanted to be a vegetarian, too. It only lasted a few weeks before I was back in my old meat-eating habits.

The next summer, I interned at The Humane Society of the United States in the Companion Animals Department, working on issues such as spaying and neutering, euthanasia, and animal sheltering. Working in this incredible animal protection organization, I was exposed for a second time to the animal welfare ethic. I decided to read Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation and John Robbin’s Food Revolution, and as soon as I read those books I knew that animal rights was a just cause, and that eating meat was disgusting from an ethical, health, and environmental standpoint. This time, with the knowledge to back up my choice, I became a committed vegetarian and have not wanted meat since.

As soon as I became a vegetarian, my eyes opened to all of the injustice that animals face in modern society. I read about animals in entertainment, forced to suffer through brutal training and harsh conditions; animals used for clothing, caught in leg-hold traps or going crazy in cages just for their soft fur; and animals in testing, undergoing horrifying experiments that are often completely unnecessary and repetitive. I came to the conclusion that animal abuse is systematically accepted for no good reason. It became my mission to spread the word about the large-scale cruelty in the world that most people don’t know about—just like I hadn’t.

What animal protection issue concerns you the most?

The animal protection issue that concerns me the most is factory-farming. Nearly 10 billion animals are raised and killed in the United States each year for food. These pigs, cows and chickens are each individuals with their own personalities and feelings—and with billions and billions of animals, the amount of suffering is just staggering. Every single person has the power to not contribute to this unethical industry. In fact, the only way the industry will ever change is if people stop buying meat. That is why this issue is so important to me: It’s so easily solvable, yet it’s not being solved. The amount of meat consumed in the United States and throughout the world continues to grow at fast rates.

Luckily, you can do your part just by going vegetarian, which has other benefits besides helping animals. Vegetarian and vegan diets are healthy and far better for the environment. (Did you know that the livestock industry contributes more to greenhouse gas emissions than all cars, trucks and planes combined?) Going vegetarian or vegan—and talking about your decision with family, friends, and anyone else you meet—is perhaps the best thing you can do to help animals. It’s important not to preach, though—remember nice, smart people can be meat-eaters too, and it’s hard for people to make such a big switch away from a meat-diet that is so accepted in our society. The best thing you can do is be as educated as possible about the issues and talk to people calmly and rationally about why you think a vegetarian diet is better for animals, for health, and for the environment.

Tell me about the club you started at Princeton.

Last year, a friend and I co-founded the Princeton Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) because we felt passionately about doing something to help animals, but there was no organized group of animal advocates yet on campus. As soon as we formed the group, it became clear that there was actually a ton of interest in animal protection, and our membership quickly grew. We have about 15 extremely dedicated and active members and hundreds more who participate in our events.

The mission of PAWS is to raise awareness about crucial animal welfare issues, to work on local and national campaigns, and to promote more humane lifestyles among Princeton students. To accomplish these goals, we host relevant speakers, organize demonstrations, and throw delicious vegan parties and study breaks. Our speakers have included PETA VP Dan Mathews, animal rights law professor Gary Francione, political activist Julie Lewin, Professor Peter Singer, founder of the Sistah Vegan project Amie Breeze Harper, and we’re looking forward to hosting HSUS President Wayne Pacelle next April. Our demonstrations have been somewhat more controversial; last May, eleven PAWS members participated in a "Human Meat Tray” demonstration with the help of PETA. Right outside the dining hall windows, these students stripped down into their underwear, covered themselves with fake blood, and pretended to be meat in human-size chicken trays. This demonstration was designed to force viewers to recognize that the meat they eat was once a living, breathing animal with the same flesh and bones as our human activists. Another special event we participated in was the College Veg Pledge, a nationwide event organized by Students for Animal Rights, an organization that serves as a resource for college animal rights groups. Each of these schools got people to pledge to go vegetarian for just one day, November 13, to try it out. At Princeton, we had over 690 people give up meat that day.

Perhaps our favorite types of events are the ones where we give out free food. I think that giving away delicious vegan food is the easiest way to get people to start thinking about their food choices and understand that it’s not a sacrifice to eat humanely! We’ve had dessert parties, Indian food study breaks, trendy vegetarian Asian fusion food from Zen Palate, and more.

In addition to these events, we work on ongoing campaigns to change policies on and off campus. Our biggest and most successful campaign has been the cage-free campaign. Princeton’s environmental group has been discussing adopting a cage-free egg policy with Dining Services for a few years. When PAWS formed last year, we joined the conversation. Last year, Dining Services finally agreed to start serving cage-free shell eggs, and this year they introduced cage-free liquid eggs. We’ll keep talking to them to make sure we soon use exclusively cage-free eggs! PAWS and I were lucky to be featured on mtvU’s series Cause Effect, talking about our cage-free efforts. At the same time, we’re talking to Dining Services about offering better vegetarian and vegan options—while being veg here isn’t too hard, we want it to be a lot easier.

How have your family, friends, peers responded to your activism? Are you ever faced with criticism?

My family and friends have been very supportive of my vegetarianism. My older sister Christina was a vegetarian before I was, so my family was used to the idea of animal right and vegetarian eating. My dad is very health conscious and an environmentalist, so he eats vegetarian. My other sister and my mom are pretty much happy to eat vegetarian when we are, so vegetarian meals aren’t a problem in my house! Actually, we just had a delicious vegetarian Thanksgiving complete with Tofurky. One thing that helps solve potential problems is offering to cook: I was in charge of cooking the Tofurky, so my mom didn’t have to worry about that.

My friends are also extremely supportive. They understand that sticking up for animals who don’t have a voice of their own is a good thing to do, whether or not they agree with the philosophical basis for animal rights. Most of my closest friends, though, are vegetarians—probably because I’m drawn to people who share the same values I do. (Or, maybe just because I nagged them enough…)

PAWS has faced criticism for some of our more attention-grabbing demonstrations. Whenever you do something that argues against a commonly accepted practice, you are going to have people ridiculing you and throwing personal insults. That is no reason to stop! I think that if we didn’t face criticism, that would mean we were doing something wrong. We are forcing people to reconsider deeply ingrained cultural habits—and that’s hard to do.

It’s easy to become active for animals. Grab a like-minded friend, find out the policies for starting a club at your school, fill out the necessary paper work and you have a club! There are lots of easy events you can do, like table in the dining hall with pro-animal literature, give away veg food, or ask your dining hall to serve only cage-free eggs.

Besides starting a club, if you want to help animals it’s very important to understand the ethical and practical issues surrounding animals. Read up on the subject (I recommend Animal Liberation, Food Revolution, and the movie Earthlings). Learn as much as you can so that you can be a reasonable, well-informed and respectable advocate for animals.

What are your future plans for helping animals?

This year and next year, I will continue working with my group PAWS to raise awareness on the Princeton campus. After college, who knows! Whatever I do, my long-term goal is to use my skills to advance the animal welfare movement.