I became interested in vegetarianism when I was about 10 years old. My uncle and his family took me to an upscale fish restaurant where they ordered lobster on a bed of rice. I had never seen such a thing before, and it was quite a shock to see a whole lobster sitting there, just as advertised, on a bed of rice. I could hardly look at it and went to eat at another table. Later my father told me that to cook a lobster, people buy it live and dump it in boiling water. That was my introduction to trying to eat in a more humane manner.

BONUS! Noam is a winner of The Vegetarian Resource Group’s youth video contest. You can view his winning entry, No More Meat, at: http://www.vrg.org/veg_videos.php#Lautman