I've been both vegan and vegetarian. I'm vegetarian now because I eat the eggs of my backyard hens. I relalize they've been bred to produce more eggs, and this can deplete their bodies of nutrients, which is why I feed them calcium-rich organic foods and let them wander my three acres foraging for bugs and leaves and everything else they desire. There are six of them. Enough to provide my family eggs and for me to share with whomever wants. We live in a rural area.

I don't drink cow milk. Of my three kids, two drink almond milk, but our littlest refuses. It's been a battle. I've even shown her videos of sad separated baby cows and mothers. But she's 6. So I've yielded. She will only drink cow milk.

We live in a rual community. Everyone I know eats meat and dairy. Every one of my children's friends. I'm the primary chef in our home and while I only cook vegan food (aside from the eggs), the school proffers meat. The only vegan alternative is peanut butter and jelly. Every time I try to get things to change there, we run into a challenges, and a dilemma: social alienation vs dietary perfection. So my kids sometimes eat the chicken nuggets.

The problem with veganism is in its absolutism. The cause for humanity ought to be reducing meat consumption. Right now, we're on track to *increase* meat consumption 70-100% by 2050, so *any* extent to which we can reduce this is paramount. Absolutism and moral purity won't help. Most people I know think vegans are crazy or stuck up. Being vegan is stigmatized by the intolerant, "no-exceptions" ideology, just like what's on display here. It's counter-productive.

Calling vegetarianism "at best a philosophy of the unknowing, and at worst one of the unwilling" is not only smug, but it's hurting the cause. We don't want to belittle vegetarians! That makes absolutely no sense!

And don't even get me started on how privileged it is to assume all people in all parts of the world have the proper access to the right foods to meet their caloric and nutritional needs...

Can't we just be on the same team? Maybe when my kids are older and doing well they'll all be vegans. And my chickens (that I bought because I worried the pandemic might cripple the supply chain to the point grocery stores would go down and my garden wouldn't be enough to sustain my five-person family) will die having lived a long happy life.

Until then, blow it out your ass.

Respectfully yours,

TJ