No Stupid Questions

I respect other people's choices in what to consume, and I expect the same respect in return. I have no problem with people being vegan or vegetarian. In fact, most people I work with are from India and are vegetarian. We eat lunch together most days and no one has any problems with each other.

Unfortunately most vegans I know are extremely pushy and judgemental about their diet/lifestyle. They do not respect my choice in what to consume. This used to causes some preemptive judgements on my part, where I would get defensive immediately about my dietary choices, because I assumed they were judging me. Over time I have learned to control this reflex.

I can only assume that many people have had the same experience as me, and jump to the same conclusions.

Because strident, belligerant activists don't raise awareness, they just make people hate them. I'm sure there's a generalizable lesson in here somewhere.

Right. I see what you mean but I think what you're asking for is impossible to ascertain

I think a lot of people also have a hard time seeing it as a priority for themselves compared to their personal problems and other ongoings. It's subjective, sure. But it also takes a ton of personal responsibility and self control/denial to change habits.

Bottom line, there is a lot of things out there to care about right now, and being vegan is a big change for a lot of people. That, mixed with the extreme (understandable) feelings about mistreatment of animals by vegans, often leads to a feeling of repulsion from investing personal bandwidth into changing the behavior.

That's my opinion based on growing up with religiously vegan parents.

I generally try not to bring it up, but I know folks that've resumed eating meat and we're welcomed back with high-fives. This argues against the "preachy" argument in this thread. And people don't get criticized the same way over eating unnutritious fast food all the time. My view is that some people feel criticized by other folks' different life choices. When Alice to be in an out group, Betty is confronted with their own life choices.

I think its the extreme. The idea of reducing meat consumption over eliminating it is not met kindly by many vegans and vegan communities. I also see a lot of down play of the nutrient challenge discussion. Now like anything on the internet the extremes tend to be the most vocal. I have personally known vegans who are pretty happy if people are even reducing meat consumption at all or being lacto/ovo pescatarians or such. Its really bad as sometimes the message is if your not going to go full on vegan than your personally responsible for destroying the planet (much like all responsibility for palastinian suffer is because joe bidens the one doing the genocidin) and you might as well eat meat at every meal. The reaction of this for non vegans is very often F these folks and you know what I think I will go out and have a triple bacon cheese burger right now because they taste great.

Same reason people who love fossil fuels hate people who are worried about global warming