My issue with the recently-encountered vegan was not, actually, the veganism. If we survive as a species, yes, it's fairly likely that in 200-300 years time everyone will be vegan. It's also fairly likely that time outdoors will be limited due to pollution and/or climate change, whatever form that takes where we are, and we'll all have to recycle urine in our own homes to have water to drink, and that power will come from some kind of solar or geothermal source (and no, I don't mean fracking). There'll also probably be far fewer of us.
As mentioned in my last message, I have several long-term vegan/vegetarian friends (I mean, we've been friends and they've been on their diets for over 30 years, so, you know, it's definitely not just a passing fashionable fad for them). If we go to a restaurant together, I might have a meat-based meal, I might not. I don't expect them to cater for my diet if I stay with them, and if they stay with me there are usually two options on offer, one with vegan choices (they usually get oat milk, since oats will, at least, grow in the UK) and one with animal-based produce.
My vegan and veggie friends (all of whom ARE pretty reasonable) know their best chance of persuading me (and others) to eat fewer animal products, apart from the ethical arguments, is when they make me yummy meals or share yummy recipes. And some of the best desserts I've ever had have been vegan. Made with tofu. (Made from soya, another crop that I don't think grows naturally in the UK at present? As with lentils [see below] I could only find one UK-based supplier. So it's a fair bet that if you're using tofu you're adding food miles.)
What annoyed me about the recent vegan encounter was that I got a lecture on how it isn't possible to "pretend to be concerned about the planet" and still eat animal-based produce. And then they used lentils as an example of what I should be eating. Last time I checked, lentils a) aren't that easy a crop to grow, in our northern European climate (I could find ONE consistent supplier and I don't think they currently produce enough for 66 million people) so b) most of them have to be imported. From countries considerably poorer than our own, where they were a staple crop for the poor, but have now become unaffordable for some. And all of this coming from someone who drove a car around a hundred miles a day for work (and not an electric or hybrid one either), drank almond milk (California wildfires, anyone?), and took vitamin supplements. That's before the "vegetarian leather" issue and the, so who actually DID sow and reap those vegetables and fruits you're eating? And how come she got so wound up about animals but she didn't care about the human agricultural workers put up in dodgy caravans, if they're lucky, who make that vegan diet possible?
No matter what our lifestyle, we have an impact on the planet. Just sitting still in the middle of a forest and doing nothing, we're still consuming oxygen. So the thing that really got my goat was the sheer hypocrisy of this particular vegan effectively saying she was doing everything so perfectly she was saving the planet single-handedly when even vegan life choices come at a cost to the Earth....I made a tongue-in-cheek comment to someone recently about how "vegan water" might be a good product to market and another vegan actually took me seriously and hastened to explain to me that all water is, in fact, vegan...
(And on a separate note, don't you just love Christmas for the way it brings family arguments and differences to the fore?!)