This young girl can teach us all a valuable lesson. When Genesis Butler was 3 years old, she asked where her food came from. Hear her amazing story of how she changed her family’s lives forever and set out to change the world.
When she was just 3.5 year old, Genesis Butler asked her mother where her food came from. Her mother, Genelle, said “we kill animals for it, sweetheart,” and Genesis was never the same. By the age of 5 she’d turned her entire family vegan and today, at 8 years old, continues to speak out for the animals. [tweet this]
Today I have the honor of introducing you to eight-year-old Genesis Butler. Named PETA’s Cutest Vegan Kid 2015 [tweet this] out of thousands of applicants and having received The Paul McCartney Animal Hero Kids Young Veg Advocate Award for her veganized version of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, Genesis is making waves in the vegan community and beyond:
“I have a dream that all animals on earth will have peace in their lives.
We all deserve it, human or not.
For this I have fought.
It’s just that simple: don’t eat meat.
This is my vegan dream.”
-Genesis Butler, Age 7 [tweet this]
Genesis is the third Animal Hero Kid in my series highlighting extraordinary vegan kids making a difference for the planet, the animals, and the people.
On why she went vegan, Genesis said “I went vegan when I was six years old, and I went vegan because I don’t believe animals should be killed.”
And she took her entire family along for the journey! [tweet this] Having converted her entire family to veganism by the age of five, Genesis set her sights on the rest of the world. Speaking of her activism, she said, “I go to a bunch of protests against SeaWorld, Ringling Brothers, and all animal abusers. I’ve done hunters protests where I’m against trophy hunters.”
While lobbying her local government to implement Meatless Mondays, and succeeding by the way, Genesis brought vital arguments about animal agriculture into the public eye. Check out the video above to see Genesis speak to the council, but here is the some select portions of her address:
“When I eat my lunch with my friends they always throw away their school lunch and only eat the piece of fruit or dessert because they say the rest is nasty.
The water footprint for meat and dairy is 47%. It makes much more sense to urge people to limit eating meat. The footprint is a lot higher than the footprint for direct household use. I am a kid and I am really scared about the drought. I’m afraid I won’t have water in the future. We can do something about this.”
With all she’s accomplished, I asked Genesis I asked her what kept her motivated to keep fighting for the animals:
“What motivates me is because every time that I don’t eat meat, I know that I’m saving one animal’s life. And every single day that I don’t eat meat I know that I’m saving one animal’s life. So I know that just by all that that I do, I save an animal’s life, and that makes me really happy.”
Having begun her vegan journey at the age of 3 and a half, Genesis firmly believes that kids can make a huge impact:
“Younger people can make a difference, some children don’t think that they could, but they really can. Because every child does have a voice, there’s more children like me that show it and they should just get out of their house. A bunch of children play video games, but instead they should go and look for protests and stuff and just protest. And keep on doing it and they’ll be someone like me!”
Finally, I asked Genesis how she deals with questions from other kids at school about what she eats:
“When they ask it I just say that I eat plants, then they’re like “flowers and stuff?” and I’m like “I don’t eat flowers, I eat soy beans and stuff. They’re blended up and they’re made into food.”
My mom packs me extra food, because they always try to eat my food. The cafeteria lunch [doesn’t] have anything good in there and my mom packs me extra lunch and I share it with them at lunch time. I tell them what my food is made out of and they’re like ‘oh, that’s really cool!’ I have two vegetarian friends now.
There used to be this boy and I had a salad at school and he was like “eww you have a salad” and he had bacon so I was like ‘well, eww you have bacon, that’s a pigs butt!’ and he just left me alone.”
If you want to find out more about Genesis and follow her work, check out her links below. I have no doubt that she’s just getting started.
Stay tuned to the channel to hear from more Animal Hero Kids and check out the rest of the heroes so far linked below!
If you were inspired by Genesis, do give the video a thumbs up and share it around to help show what kids can accomplish. If you’re new here, I’d love to have you as a subscriber. I put out fresh content covering all aspects of veganism every Monday, Wednesday and some Fridays. To help support Bite Size Vegan’s educational efforts, please see the support page or join us in the Nugget Army on Patreon.
Now go live vegan, speak out no matter your age, and I’ll see you soon.
RESOURCES:
— Emily Moran Barwick
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Genesis Butler is a beautiful, wonderful child. I think our future is in very good, compassionate hands with children like Genesis.
Her parents are to be applauded for listening and respecting Genesis’s values. Many parents would not.
It would be nice if the adults listened to Genesis.
‘well, eww you have bacon, that’s a pigs butt!’ – my favourite quote from this video.
I’m on vegetarian diet since I was 10/11(before that I eat thing likes jelly, soup that cointains meat etc) and my family etc knows that I will never come back to meat and they get it. Now I cut off dairy and eggs too and this is tooo much for them, even for my boyfriend(he’s vegetarian)
I’m sure that I don’t have as many product as you in the USA, but when I can’t buy something I made it. Today I’m making ‘mozarella’
It is great that I can buy sweet vegan chocolate, vegan ‘nutella’ they taste even better than product with milk.