Interesting take. I think one reason why I was drawn to eating vegan is because I like vegetable based meals as opposed to meat centered dishes that are common in the US and other countries with similar eating styles. I currently reside in East Asia (Taiwan), and like the Japanese, the Taiwanese don’t eat a lot of meat heavy meals. Much of it is rice or noodle based with a good amount of vegetables and pieces of meat in it.

I find eating vegan can be quite restrictive and limiting, especially in non-tropical environments where one will only have access to a variety of plant based foods during short windows of the year. Unless it makes geographical sense, I wouldn’t recommend it, as I believe the ideal diets are largely geographical. This why I found debates centered around the “perfect diet” to he quite silly and almost cult-like (I talked about this topic here).

While I did entertain the idea of eating vegan, I decided to eat eggs more often because I wasn’t keen on the faux meats (I don’t really like the taste of meat that much except for fish) and tofu. While I love beans, it became boring eating them all the time.

I think if meat is treated as a dressing for one’s grains and veggies, it’ll be an easier “compromise” for me. When I was visiting my parents, my dad made a big pot of a vegetable soup for everyone, but he added fine slices of chicken. The soup had a tomato base and it was thick enough to be like a stew that would perfectly complemented my left over rice from the previous night. I quickly found that it would’ve been impossible to pick it out the pieces. I decided to give it a try anyways. Unless I ate the parts with chunky pieces, I could barley taste the meat since the soup was full of vegetables/vegetable seasonings. To my surprise I actually didn’t mind the chicken that much unless it was a chunky piece.

I still continue to eat vegetarian and use eggs as my go-to animal protein, but if I were to eat animal flesh more regularly as oppose to “accidentally”, I’d prefer it to be in a way where it’s masked under a bed of vegetables and grains.