An omnivore’s definition of ‘friend’

If an omnivore said that ‘animal-food’ was okay, despite knowing what happens to animals and what these foods are doing to people’s health, they’d make themselves look foolish or heartless or both. Most people’s self-image can’t stand that so they put up a resistance ... anything goes. They hate being tagged ‘foolish’ or ‘bad’.
However, the writing is on the wall for omnivorous habits. It’s only a matter of time before it all comes crashing down by which time it will have become too embarrassing for anyone to pretend they haven’t noticed. Our faith in the food we eat is obviously already wobbling. Tentatively, people are flirting with the ‘vegetarian option’. They’d like to be less dependent on meat and such. Their bodies would too.
Above us, as we look up, we can see a mountainous wave about to crush us. And yet it’s a powerless wave once the lies upon which it builds are exposed - the central lie being that animals foods can keep us strong and healthy. A subsidiary lie, concerning the ‘bounty of the Earth’, is linked to ‘our duty to partake’ of this bounty. No one likes to be lied to; no one likes the authority spreading those lies. Consequently, our faith in our food is wearing a bit thin.
It sounds as though we must say to ourselves, “ I eat therefore I must believe”.
To move away from that means a radical shift of habit. And that’s an ego-shattering and frustrating experience, especially when we find it too difficult and we can’t face even trying it. It makes people feel like prisoners to their own habits.
For vegans to be free of this may be wonderful enough, but it doesn’t help with the problem grumbling away at most people. Feeling wonderful about something is sure to put others off, big time.
The reality for most people is that they are glued to their habits and can’t shift them. They can’t do it ... but, in a funny way, neither can we. We, as vegans, don’t suffer from ego-shatter but from a frustration peculiar to our new habits which don’t necessarily help us when it comes to defending our vegan food habits to the sceptical. That’s embarrassing. But not as embarrassing as the omnivore’s inability to defend their own lifestyle which centres about eating abused animals without that habit being defensible or justifiable.
As vegans we are ‘charged’ with the job of ‘experting’ ourselves ... in order to be able to defend veganism. We have extremely powerful things to say. We have a certain power but it’s how we exert and respect that power that is critical. We must realise that what we say is not only potentially the most constructive thing we can say but can also be the most destructive. If what we say rubs salt into the wound, it can only unleash a dramatic response - if we stray too deeply into ‘enemy’ territory, whether with friend or relative, we can expect they might want to ostracise us, for the very reason that “no friend does this and calls themselves ‘friend’”.