It's refreshing to come across such an open minded person in discussions on this topic (people generally feel extremely defensive when it comes to meat eating,

It's refreshing to come across such an open minded person in discussions on this topic (people generally feel extremely defensive when it comes to meat eating, on all sides of the argument, I'm not sure why this specific topic strikes people's nerves so much). It really is a surprisingly complicated topic, I have my doubts about some aspects too. I was never much fond of killing animals for food, but what ultimately compelled me to go vegetarian was an article similar to this[0] I have read many years ago. I always “knew” this is what's happening in the animal derived food industry, but somehow reading that with all the depictions stuck some cord in the emotional and moral part of my mind and I decided to simply stop eating meat from that moment on. It was remarkably easy for me once I had that moment of “illumination” (for a lack of a better word), I've never had any desire to try meat since then (although I've tried one small piece of meat several years ago just to see what will happen--nothing, complete indifference). But, I haven't gone further, I haven't even tried being vegan. Although I understand the vegan argument, and agree with it in principle on an intellectual level, but that emotional part of the experience leading to moral commitment, that spark is missing (there's also the practicality angle, I live in a culture that's not really conductive to being vegetarian, let alone vegan, eating out can be a bit complicated sometimes). So there, I just wanted to share my experience of learning (and I still am). I understand what you're saying when it comes to changing perspectives. [0] In a magnificent anarchist magazine, The Match, self printed (non digital, on a Linotype machine IIRC) and published by Fred Woodworth[1], a great anarchist and an amazing individual in general. I had to take this opportunity to mention The Match (I consider it a form of community service to HN, a lot of people here might like to know of this) because it's severely disproportionally unknown in comparison to its quality (in large part because of some of Fred's uncompromising stances on publishing and printing). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Woodworth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Woodworth