You're a PETA activist, but you work at McDonald's?
Yes, but wherever I work right now will have something I don't agree with. Restaurants serve meat. Clothing stores have leather. It won't make a difference where I work. I'm not going to quit my job because somebody has a problem with it.


They must love you there.
They do. They don't get mad or make me work in the back. As long as I don't protest them, it's fine. I don't fight customers or anything. I turned a couple co-workers vegetarian, and I helped reduce waste, which they love.

Are the chicken McNuggets made with real chicken?
Yes, they are. And I know that they are now. I don't know what they were before.

What's your beef with KFC?
Every KFC chicken has less room than a sheet of paper. They can't turn around. They're bred to be top-heavy so their legs break under the pressure. They're seven times heavier than they're supposed to be to produce more food. Their life span is 15 years but they kill them at about two months. We're trying to get them to stop using growth hormones, give them more space, and kill them when they're older so they have some life. The workers grab them, slit their throats, and it only kills less than 50 percent of them, and this is while they're shackled on a conveyor belt. And whether they're alive or not, they drop them into scalding hot water to get their feathers off. They should at least be dead before they're scalded alive.


So at two months old, the chicken knows what's up?
Yeah. If they had a regular life, they're as advanced as cats and dogs. My uncle has chickens at his house and they have their own personalities. They have friends and their little groups.

How would you prefer the chickens die?
(laughs) I'd rather them not die. There are humane standards out there. There's a machine and I can't explain how it works, but there is a process for this on www.kfccruelty.com you can read about. Nobody ever asked us that so it's one of the few things I'm not totally up on.

What the hell is soy milk? It isn't possible.
(laughs) The soybean is a plant and it's like a pea. They can be made into anything. I drink soy milk every day because I'm lactose intolerant and there's no lactose in it.

But it isn't milk. Are they trying to fool me?
I don't know. Soy's a very healthy alternative.

Do you manipulate people while they're eating meat?
It depends. I might ask, "How can you eat a corpse?" But I'm mostly polite. I'd ask why you want to get fat. I try to be cute about it. I'd ask if you had any animals as pets. Like, if you had a dog. Would you eat your dog? It's an animal.


My dog loves cheeseburgers.
So does mine but he's going vegetarian. I was just at a fair and they had a big sign above the cows that said "Beef, it's what's for dinner." Now how can somebody see that and look at the cows and not get sick? I understand that if you don't see what's going on then it doesn't bother you, but if you watch a video it's really disgusting how they treat them.

Speaking of eating your dog, does it bother you that animals eat each other?
Yes and no. They need to survive. I understand. But we have choices and they don't.

You've said your "purpose" is to promote animal liberation. What about people liberation?
Yes. I've done charities for people. But more people are focused on people. I'm trying to fight for what's less fought for and those that can't speak for themselves.

What are the animals saying?
They don't want to be tortured and eaten. Veal cows are born to be killed in a year. They can't turn around their entire lives in that crate. They want a life, too.

Being vegan, what do you eat?
Vegetables, fruits. They make "fake" everything. A lot of it is made with soy and it has a lot of protein. Vegan pizza is the best in the world. You can get soy mozzarella or cheddar. It's great.

How does your mom feel about your rebellious ways?
At first my mom thought it was a phase. But now she's really proud of what I'm doing. She calls when I'm at protests to make sure I'm safe and that I'm not doing anything illegal. She's proud that I stand for something. I just love being able to make a difference.

What do you do when you're out rabble-rousing?
We usually hold signs and if people want information, we'll give it to them. I don't like to be confrontational. If you do one stupid thing, PETA gets a bad name. Being mean and yelling doesn't get you anywhere. You stay off the property and you be nice to the customers. I had a lot of people email me over the last protest saying how great it was.

How about that time at the stadium?
I did that for a group called Dogs Deserve Better. The founder chains hersef to a doghouse in State College every year. It's for perpetually chained dogs - people who make the dog live outside on a chain for their life. That's a living being that's chained outside in the winter and the chain will freeze and cut the dog. Dogs have died from the chain. I just went for eight hours chained to a doghouse before the fireworks at Red Barons stadium that night. We gave flyers to people and asked people to send letters for a law in our state. We got 87 letters. We're hoping they'll think about it.

Did your butt hurt?
A little bit. (laughs) I got up once in a while. I didn't mind.

What do you want to be in life?
I've always wanted to be a teacher. You can work with veganizing the cafeteria, which I'm going to do this year in school. I want to work with kids. I'd love to be stationed in Virginia by PETA. It really means a lot to me. I ultimately would like to teach and do this on the side. I know the whole world won't ever give up meat, but we can always try.