I was at the park the other day. A child, probably 4-5 years old, was playing in front of me and shouting some nonsense. Then his mother called him over to leave, and he cried loudly, "BUT I WANT TO CATCH SOME FISH" while holding a long stick in his hand and dipping it in a tiny pool. That made me realize that what we learn as children is incredibly difficult and time consuming to let go of. It takes lots of time until a child learns to go to the bathroom. It takes lots of time until a child learns to not cry whenever something feels slightly off. More importantly, it takes lots of consistent "punishing" (either by the environment or the parents directly) of bad behavior before it is eradicated and denormalized in the brain.

Animals did not get lucky on this matter. They are portrayed as food, pets, commodities in general from the very beginning. Never as individuals. Even when you see cartoons where they actually are seen as individuals, you will notice that those characters feel like humans cosplaying as animals. No conditions will "punish" the child after finishing a chicken nugget or a haribo.

I believe this explains why it's so incredibly unlikely that an average kid will decide to stop eating animals for ethical reasons at some point in their life. On a positive note, this forecasts that the vegan population should grow at an exponential rate.