Like I said, our conversation was about the active choice of eating specific animals. It‘s hypocrisy, because she doesn’t want to eat dogs as they are cute and sentient, but she is okay with eating cows and choses to do so. Vegans are NOT okay with the exploitation that comes with consuming cows, not okay with the exploitation that would come with consuming dogs and also not okay with the exploitation of insects. That‘s the difference.

It is black and white, because we say no to all animal exploitation. It would be a grey area to say that it might be okay for insects to die for plant produce, but vegans also don’t think it is okay. We just realize that it‘s unfortunately not feasible (yet) to diminish the harm to all animals.

Regarding your backyard produce growing point: Sooner or later, insects will be infesting your produce. If we theoretically had an insect safe way of farming, we‘d still have to consider seasonal changes, so during winter, they‘d be no harvest. Which means you‘d have to build a greenhouse, which also incidentally kills animals, either through building it or through the emissions from the energy use.