Anyway I understand that talking about animals and plants in this fashion is not a popular position on HN, and folks have and are likely to downvote me.
An exaggeration of course. But fruits and vegetables are only the lovely things they are, because of 10,000 years of selection for what are essentially grotesque bloated versions of the 'natural' seeds and fruits they came from. Outrageous genetic experiments as unnatural as modern chicken breasts and goldfish. No reasonable 'intent' of the plant may be inferred, anthropomorphizing aside.
I certainly respect people doing that. But my perspective is that until we can photosynthesize, we're dependent on exploiting other forms of life to survive. Even modern fruit trees have been vastly changed from their natural equivalents, and farming of course creates major ecosystem changes that we're still morally responsible for, even if we're not directly killing plants.
Can we eventually get to some sort of technological plateau where we go right from inanimate objects to survival? Eventually, I'm sure. But until then, there's no morally pure way to survive, so I'm going to carry on being an omnivore and aim for reasonable harm reduction instead of purity.
However, in most Urban restaurants in the US today there are great options for vegetarian/vegan food, which makes them a lot more accessible.
Ultimately I do hope that the demand for alternative foods will continue to change the way we think about what we eat. The current situation isn’t sustainable. As the demand for meat from developing countries grows, hopefully the meat-alternatives will be good enough to satisfy the market.
Beliefs are meant to be examined and evaluated, not coddled.
I believe in free speech, but I also believe that rude, insulting, thoughtless or incendiary speech deserves to be soundly ignored.