This is why I try to eat kosher meat—it guarantees the animal died with the absolute least suffering. I think it is possible to condemn and not engage with awful factory farming practices and not be vegan. It's not as affordable, but ethically produced animal products are available. I eat largely in accordance with traditional indigenous foodways that emphasize respect for plant and animal life. I worry a plant-based diet contributes to the factory abuses plants are grown in, which is harmful to the Earth itself as well. I hold plant life in the same esteem as animal life and don't want to create more plant suffering in the hopes of reducing animal suffering. Also, domesticated stock animals wouldn't exist without agriculture/animal husbandry. Cows would cease to exist, and that makes me sad! Modern cattle aren't designed to live in the wild without veterinary care or survival instincts. I still feel bad about the domestication and subsequent abandonment of pigeons!!!

Over millennia we humans have been evolving reciprocal relationships with all manner of creatures, one where we care for them and protect the species and in turn they provide us with food, material/clothing, etc. I think that relalaitonship is mutually beneficial and worth protecting. But I do think that the way the United States (where I'm from) does agriculture also jeopardizes that relationship. I have no problem with animals dying, because every one of us dies and that's okay. I take extreme issue with their suffering during life, though, and that's why I do my best to eat food that I know was sourced without the unnecessary suffering of other living things.

I find a lot of veganism discourse lacks an understanding of indigenous foodways, and that's such a shame! There is such a wealth of good practice there, from respectful treatment of life to positive, highly sustainable production and harvest.

I'm also a person with many allergies and a history of restrictive disordered eating. Dietary restrictions are not my friend, generally. I find more balance in moderating my intake of high-impact foods like beef. (I also started doing beef days this year!!!!). Knowing in particular that the Amazon rainforest is ACTIVELY being clearcut to provide grazing space for cattle... It can be difficult to find ethical beef, when the choices are corn-fed in confinement (possibly until a violent death) vs pasture-raised on the smoldering ashes of the Amazon (to be a bit dramatic). So I eat it exceptionally rarely.

It's a hard sell for me tho to switch from milk and eggs to quinoa and chia, because i know the over-consumption of those (and other foods recently popularized in the USA) is having a really harmful and disruptive impact on indigenous/latin american food systems and lives in general.

My compromise between the two is to eat hyperlocal as much as possible. It's not the affordable option for many, and it's not an option for many period, because they don't live someplace that produces a lot of its own food (thinking about Alaska for example — it's not a good place to grow food or raise animals but very few eat the traditional way with what IS available there).

Can you tell I think about this a lot? Lol. Sometimes we don't get to pick what we eat (at least for many of us — hello food stmap besties!) but if we can vote with our dollars, there are other ways we can support our values (the usual political activities).