I think if you realise how much land is given over to production of monoculture crops to feed dairy and meat livestock, with a huge array of pesticides and how this destroys diversity of insect/mammal/bird life, how huge scale meat production units are poisoning water supply, rivers with overwhelming amounts of livestock excrement, how the Amazonian rain forest is being steadily destroyed to provide grazing for meat and dairy cattle, destroying the lungs of the world, how the excessive demands on the soil means that we have only about another 60YEARS before THE LAND IS COMPLETELY BARREN, then as uncomfortable as it is, the current means of providing food will just have to change. Yes, you can point to having pets or children or cars but it is the way we produce our food that will HAVE to change, or starvation will become an issue in our children’s lifetime.
Other things about vegan food. Yes, the new array of vegan processed food is largely NOT healthy. It is useful occasionally. Vegan food for me, though should not be about Quorn or Greggs sausage rolls, but good healthy fresh ingredients. Using a mix of veg, pulses, nuts, herbs, spices, seeds, you can make delicious food. Vegan cheese? Not really. There are some delicious products made from nuts being fermented with cultures, but they are horrifically expensive. The standard cheese substitutes from the supermarket are not great, and not really healthy though can work on a pizza. The fact is for the planet and for animal welfare, some people are prepared to make a sacrifice.
Oh, PLEASE could people not say “oh, look at soya! That’s a terrible crop all you vegetarians”. Something like 80%or more of all soya grown is for animal feed for the meat and dairy industry NOT food for humans. If all we grew was FOOD not FEED there would not be a need for such vast areas of monoculture. Animals produce in meat something like 10% of what they consume. It’s a terribly inefficient way of producing food - in terms of the food they need to consume AND the water required, AND the resultant soil depletion.
This IS a real emergency. It is all too easy to go on about vegans being holier than thou and preachy. Just about any environmentalist or ecologist agrees that the meat and dairy industry is probably doing more than anything else to destroy the planet. Liking meat, wanting to continue eating it, or dismissing vegans as trendy woke idiots just wont change that.