What else do you do, besides for the farm/nature/healthful eating stuff? Do you play a musical instrument? Go to movies? Do sports?

I love sports. I want to play in the NBA. I'm not sure I will, but I love sports. I just love stats and following players. I read the sports pages every morning and follow lots of teams. I also play the guitar. I'm not very good, but I do like it.

Boston's definitely a great town to be a sports fan. What do your classmates think of your interest in the environment and what we eat? Do they give you a hard time? Have you changed any minds?

I go to a really cool place, Glen Urquhart School, in Beverly Farms, MA. We have a huge greenhouse where we have a classroom and where we partner with The Food Project to grow pesticide-free produce for local shelters. We also have a beehive!

Because our school is so small, my classmates have been hearing me talk about this for several years. I think they're tired of it. But several of my classmates are vegetarian or vegan.

What do your parents think of your activism? Are they also into chickens?

Actually, I don't think of myself as an activist, at all. I just talk about what I'm into. I think my classmates and friends are probably also interested in really cool things, like speaking Chinese or trains. I just happen to collect all my ideas on a blog where what I am thinking is visible.

You're in middle school now. Do you have long-term goals?

I'd like to try and change the way industrialized chickens are raised. I just don't get the current system. I can't make it all make sense in my head. I guess it all has to do with money. We would rather have cheap meat rather than tasty, ethically raised meat. Cheap is more important than respecting the animal. That's what I don't get. Do you?

I am hoping that perhaps I could get some sheep. Aren't they amazing animals? I don't know anything about them other than I think they are fascinating.

Oh! I want to eat at Chez Panisse [Alice Waters' restaurant in Berkeley] and start a Farm Club at school. I guess the Farm Club isn't long-term, because my science teacher has already said she would be my faculty advisor for this. We have also gotten permission to show Food, Inc!

That's cool. I need to see that movie myself. You have a blog Happy Chickens Lay Healthy Eggs. Are your readers mostly adults, kids, people you know?

That's an interesting question. I think probably adults, because some of the stuff I post is quite gruesome. Although I just heard on an interview with Jonathan Foer that 18% of college freshmen (or is it students?) are vegetarian. I think what I am talking about is more extreme for older people than for younger people.

You've been called a young Michael Pollan. That's quite a compliment. Have you ever met him? Would you like to?

Woah, it sure is a compliment. I haven't ever met him. I would love to meet him, Will Allen, Joel Salatin, Novella Carpenter, J S Foer [vegetarian, animal rights activist and mindful eater, author of Everything is Illuminated and Eating Animals] and Rajon Rondo (on the Celtics). Obviously, I am nowhere near as smart as any of these people, but we talk about the same subjects.

Yes, you do. What message would you like our readers to take away from this interview?

I would ask them to not eat factory-farmed meat or eggs. The animals in those situations are truly tortured. I think the problem is that no one ever has an opportunity to "meet" a chicken. I think once you did, once you spent a little bit of time with one, you would realize that the hens are familiar. They are social, they have likes and dislikes, they communicate, they are not unlike other animals you know. Maybe they are even a lot like your cat or dog.

Would you ever consider raising your pet in a space so small that they couldn't turn around or do their natural things, like sit in the sun, or roll on the ground, or fetch? Chickens in factory farms are raised in a space about the size of a sheet of [notebook] paper, 8.5" x 11". Often, they can't turn around, they can't roost, they can't dust bathe, and there is no sun. All the natural things chickens usually do, they can't do. They are treated like machines, NOT like living, breathing, feeling, thinking, funny creatures. Also, get this: their beaks are trimmed with a hot blade so that they can't peck each other when they get frustrated. Are you willing to have them treated that way so that your chicken nibbleys (chicken nuggets) cost 99 cents? I'm not.

If you want to continue to eat meat, consider finding a source where the animal was ethically raised and slaughtered. Ask the market, ask the butcher, and if they won't tell you, don't eat it. And once you have had pasture-raised eggs, you will never go back to the factory farmed eggs. The taste is completely different.

Anything you'd like to add, Orren?

One of my favorite ideas comes at the end of Food, Inc. That idea is that you can make a difference three times a day. What you choose to buy and eat, you can have a big impact.

Yes, we can all be, literally, mindful consumers. That's a lovely way to conclude our interview. Thanks for talking with me, Orren. It was a pleasure!

Orren recommends:

Food Inc. documentary film, from their website: "Food, Inc. reveals surprising--and often shocking truths--about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here."

And

Every Kitchen Table
Farm to Table
Civileats
The WHO Farm
Hungry for Change
FRESHthemovie
LisTimpone we are working on a book together
HumaneTeen

Orren's on twitter @happychickens and @happyhoneybees
Orren's blog: Happy Chickens Lay Healthy Eggs

Part one of my interview with Orren

A few of Orren's favorite photos:

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