The first clue towards why this is not a black and white thing, is the different reasons for becoming a vegan:

• Health – preventative
• Health – in response to ill health
• Taste – don’t like the taste or texture of meat – especially after shunning it for a long time
• Morals – eating animals is wrong
• Ethics – an animal suffering because of you is wrong
• Fashion – yes, absolutely, people do it to be cool
• Religion – for example Jains
• Climate change – less meat could save us all

In each of the above, being in the direction of veganism is better than not. Eating 10% less beef than before is a win. So is 50%.

Few people will cite more than one reason.

Also, according to studies, few people are actually 100% vegan, no matter how much they want to be. Late-night drunken lapses are one of the common reasons.

Also, despite high vigilance, you probably accidentally use or consume something animal-sourced sometimes.

So, it definitely is not a binary choice, and everyone has their own story and levels of compliance. Militant vegans have little understanding or respect for that, and their hardline attitudes do more harm than good.

Most of those reasons have no scientific or logical basis. You are not more likely to get into heaven or be reincarnated. There is little proof that vegetarian diets are better than simply healthy omnivore diets.

Animals suffering is also debatable. Yes, at the time of death, in some contexts, there might be suffering. But how do you measure that? Is 1 second 10x worse than 0.1 of a second? Is all suffering, no matter how minuscule, unacceptable? Doesn’t life itself involve suffering?

Plants, we hear, can feel pain and communicate it. But a vegan can’t dare go there, or else they will starve.

Rarely mentioned is what happens to cows and sheep and goats and chickens if all of humanity goes vegan? There are a hundred kept in some special farm to save them from extinction? That brings up one final angle – is the life of a sheep, who is ultimately killed for food – better than never existing at all? Who decides?

My thought – there is no absolute answer. A good person is someone who considers all the angles and makes a considered decision. A vegan, if they arrived there by choice, is more likely to be a good person, because many meat-eaters simply don’t even question that choice.

Me personally, I am trending towards veganism. I eat less meat than ever before, and substantially less beef and lamb. I’m enjoying roast cauliflower! I buy organic and sow-stall free and cage-free whenever possible. I wear vegan shoes by Cariuma, but I won’t throw out a perfectly good leather belt.