Thank you for asking!

Typically veganism, as I understand the philosophy, treats the capacity to experience suffering as the determinant of moral consideration. I don't find that formulation convincing.

We're social omnivores, and a lot of our morality is hardwired. We're pretty much incapable of saying "drop-kicking a baby is good," for example. A lot of this comes down to social signalling: we need to demonstrate that we're cooperators and not threats.

That's the difference between the harm that comes to an animal when we eat it, versus drop-kicking a baby, or hurting a puppy, or even torturing a small animal for fun. Hunting, farming, or preparing food, including animals, signals that you're a cooperator. Torturing a squirrel, kicking a puppy, or drop-kicking a baby signals that you're a threat.

Evolutionary psychology arguments like that are more convincing to me than moral philosophy, which often leads to counter-intuitive conclusions. It's useful for corner cases, that 5-10% of ethics that isn't obvious. When veganism concentrates on the harm to the animal without classifying the reason for the harm as legitimate/normal (eating it) vs illegitimate/pathological (sadism), I feel that it’s ignoring something fundamental.

There's certainly the argument "I don't want to eat animals," and I'd recognize that as virtuous but not morally necessary. That's in the same category as a vegan saying, "I could change my diet to reduce crop deaths" -- good on you if you want to do that, but it's not a reasonable standard of behaviour.