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@nat

All of this thread so much. I was vegetarian and vegan in my youth for virtuous reasons and because of poverty, but as I got older and experienced more of the world, I saw what a colonial bent it could have sometimes, and how it affected social interactions, especially when it came to the hospitality of others while travelling.

I am horrified by factory farming and a huge lover of animals. I also learned in my 30s that I can't digest a lot of my favourite vegan foods, especially legumes very well. I learned about the living and working conditions of cashew pickers and the impact of the almond industry on water and climate, and, like all of life, came to accept that it's complicated.

I've been in the firehouse of ire aimed by vegans before. How I am ruining the planet by eating meat that came from about a mile away from me, but I can watch them eating $20 cashew cheese without ever thinking about the hands of that cashew worker. The level of privilege and lack of awareness it takes for another person to attack someone for what they eat shows a serious deficit of understanding and compassion. They will come. They will yell. Pay them no mind. Kindness is kindness. And if they don't have any, they are the person who is lost.