A young boy from Beverly Hills was named the Cutest Vegan Kid of 2014 by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Seven-year-old Matthew Munro and his mother, Jessica Cadett, entered the contest by submitting an essay. What began as a joke turned into a win they never expected.
Matthew has three cats of his own and also leaves food out for the neighborhood strays. He said he’d rather feed his four-legged friends than to see them eaten.
"So, we could help them and feed them,” Munro said.
Munro’s just like most other kids his age. He loves to play video games and go mudding except, unlike his classmates, he’s vegan.
"You have to not eat meat and you have to protect the animals," he said explaining what he thinks the word vegan means.
Besides not eating meat, he loves drinking a big glass of almond milk or eating anything that doesn’t have any animal by products.
"I eat cookies, doughnuts, apples, and ice-cream," Munor said.
Matthew's been a vegan since he was a few weeks old.
"I really didn't think it was going to come this far," said his mother, once she found out he won the contest.
Part of the essay included, "I'm vegan because God put animals on Earth for us to enjoy his beauty."
Those words struck a chord with PETA, who chose Munro as the winner. He beat a dozen kids from all across the country.
"It lifted my spirits to see him so happy because he was glowing, like glowing excitement all over his face," said his mother.
His mom is also a vegan and she says, he was just raised that way.
"He would always want what I ate,” she said. “As he got older, he started to understand where meat came from and I think, mind over matter, it bothered him. We're animal lovers, to us, animals weren't put here for meat."
So now that this boy from Beverly Hills has made it big, we wanted to know if he thought he was a star.
To which he replied, "I think I'm cool."
And as for a future career in show business, his mother said, "I'm not going to push him to be a celebrity.”