From everything that I'd seen, I came to realize that our food and how we produce it,

particularly products of industrial animal agriculture, links to almost every issue I'd work done.

From biodiversity loss to climate change to food insecurity. Hi, I'm Elizabeth Novigrats. This is Species Unite. We have a favor to ask if you like today's episode and you have a spare minute

could you please rate and review Species Unite on Apple Podcasts or wherever you

listen to Podcasts. It really helps people to find the show.

This conversation is with Thomas King.

Thomas is the founder and CEO of Food Frontier, a food innovation think tank dedicated to diversifying the world's food supply through the development of alternative proteins.

Thomas is 24 years old.

At 13, he launched an awareness campaign about deforestation

caused by unsustainable palm oil production, which catapulted him right into the deep end of advocacy.

At 18, he was named Victoria's young Australian of the year for his environmental and humanitarian work. Thomas, hi, it's so nice to have you here today. I am so pleased to be here.

Thanks, Beth.

I want to go way back.

You're not really even that old now.

You're pretty young.

And you've done more than most people who are you know double your age already because you

started so young when you were 13 14 what was happening in your life and with

your childhood that drew you toward activism and caring so deeply about the planet.

Yeah, so I grew up in the outer east of Melbourne here in Australia.

I was in a pretty entrepreneurial and creative person and I certainly was as a kid and always had a deep fascination with the natural world.

I think I had just about every David Attenborough box set series ever created and would watch them pretty much every weekend and was just captivated by the rich diversity of planet Earth.

I was lucky enough to grow up surrounded by it when I was

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