People look at me as vegan and conclude that since I stepped on a snail or because the vegetables I eat resulted in a tractor death for a squirrel somewhere in Paraguay that somehow vegans are hypocrites, which of course they’re not since perfection is an unattainable goal and is something to be driven towards, never actually achieved.
The difference between you and the vegan standing next to you is that while you’re both going to step on a bug tomorrow, they’ve decided to dedicate their lives to as little harm as possible, completely independent from what you do. So in no way does the protozoan life form they step on negate your responsibility for the lamb you’re paying a stranger to cut tomorrow. And falling 1% of an unattainable goal is really good when you’re standing next to someone who won’t even try.

Out of all the species…man alone tries to cook and change his food. A seed when planted will sprout to life…but when cooked, the life is destroyed….Man does not like to partake of food as God created it. He is the victim of his tongue, which he wants to be satisfied in terms of tastes, and so his own likes and dislikes come in the way of what he should eat…Because he is exterminating the life-giving forces in the food available to him, he is increasingly subjecting himself to disease.

Whether it be a human, an ape, a cat, or a gerbil, no sentient being has “better” or more advanced nerves. The animals we use for enjoyment and convenience have families, desires, and personalities. They taste food, enjoy the company of others, and value many of the qualities of life we as humans hold sacred in the experience of living. So while we may have some very different cognitive abilities, what we take from animals by reducing them to our “things” is as devastating to them as it is would be to us.

In fact, if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people.