The simplicity of the vegan solution is not so simple after all.

Perhaps we begin to listen to ideas (vegan ideas?) that deal with our most pressing problems. We take on ‘the good idea’ (a vegan idea?) and test it out by putting it into practice. If the problem concerns our own long term welfare as well as the welfare of animals we may take it seriously (the idea of veganism). This idea is neat in that it addresses the issue of ‘cruelty to animals’ as well as our own improved nutrition, so we can see that this particular ‘good idea’ allows us to lead a much more ethical life and a healthier one too.
But for those who can’t come at it, this very same ‘good idea’ scares them. They might prefer to just live with the problem (being non-vegan). Veganism may seem like too high a price to pay for peace of mind (plus) and so, for these people, a vegan solution might be off limits, not to be discussed and not even to be considered.
So when is a good idea not a good idea? Perhaps when people refuse to take it seriously? But why wouldn’t anyone jump at the idea of best food, best health, best energy, when it’s so obvious? To a vegan, this refusal-to-consider seems illogical. We do our utmost to communicate what it’s all about. But in our zeal we tend to over-sell the idea, and find people reacting badly. When we try to talk it up, we really only talk it down. For some, this has to be an entirely locked-out subject. Just this one idea causes such different and extremely opposite reactions in people, that the last thing the entrenched meat-eater wants to do is think about it. While, of course, vegans very much want to think about it. And discuss it.
Given half a chance, vegans will do anything they can to help disseminate the idea. Trouble is, our enthusiasm makes non-vegans swing into reverse, because a good idea is not good if you don’t want to hear about it. So how do we stop that happening? Perhaps by realising just how threatening major lifestyle change is to some people (and veganism isn’t just diet but much more). But mainly it’s about food. There’s a perception-of-taste issue, but there’s a safety issue here too, concerning nutrition, flying in the face of most authorities who do NOT advocate a vegan diet. The safety of an all-plant based diet is based on instinct and the experience of those few vegans who who’ve proved that it is an optimum food regime. Even after 60 or so years veganism is still, to most people, a very new idea (of living without animal products, let alone being better all round by not using animals for anything). To stop a knee-jerk, negative response to the idea of veganism, vegans themselves have to become incredibly patient, imaginative and compassionate towards their fellow humans, and learn to resist the temptation to convert them by attacking them.
Vegans believe that a vegan diet is good for health and good for clearing the conscience. They have weighed it, tried it, become convinced and long term vegans are now completely at ease with it. Perhaps some of us have forgotten the stages we might have gone through to get to where we are now, and expect others to make a speedy transition. Vegans are usually proud of their achieving a vegan lifestyle. They’ve learnt how to do it without effort. It’s like when you first learn to ride a bike and want to show off your new talent. Once you can do it you want others to come along for a ride with you and you can’t understand why they refuse or why they keep falling off their bikes. We try to win others over with our "vegan ideas", but we often meet with resistance even from people we know. Vegans who are not self-reflective can be so full of this good idea that ethical "veganism" becomes the one subject they feel confident in talking about but ironically it’s the one subject that can make our friends "unfriendly". The good idea that seemed so simple at first …