RADICALIZERS

Kermit the Frog Messed Me Up

How my empathy for a frog puppet led me to ethical veganism

Digging into my favorite strawberry Jello at Thanksgiving dinner, my grandpa exclaimed, “It’s made from horse hooves!” I dropped my spoon and the red Jello jiggled back into the bowl. I was ten years old when I stopped eating Jello. I don’t remember when I realized hamburgers were once cows, but I can tell you exactly when I learned people ate frog legs. I was five years old, sitting in the plush red seats of a movie theater watching The Muppet Movie.

Sure, there’s puppets, singing, and funny jokes, but The Muppet Movie goes to some dark places; the bad guys are terrifying, and the fact that people are so keen on eating frog legs is especially disturbing when a frog is the star of the movie. When Professor Krassman secured Kermit into his “cerebrectomy” machine, I was petrified, and shaking in my seat. At the age of five, it’s hard to distinguish between fiction and real life. Kermit the Frog was as real to me as my beloved pets. Panic stricken and bawling my eyes out, my mom escorted me out of the theatre. I loved animals, and was aghast that someone would want to eat a frog’s legs, much less hurt Kermit the Frog.

Years later, when I first saw footage of slaughterhouses, I felt the same terror and…