I mean, that’s kind of the wrong question. The moral question around being vegan is not “is it ok to eat animals”, it’s “is it okay the way we as a society treat the animals that people will eat.”

I would not be against you having a humane and i cruel way to consume animals. I myself think eating animals is gross the same way a lot of humans feel that eating other humans would be gross, especially living today where it’s not difficult (albeit not exactly cheap either, but that’s because we subsidize the hell out of animal production; if those same subsidies went towards organic and cruelty free consumption, that would be the cheap option).

However, especially if you live in the united states, but to some extent also globally, it is impossible (or, in some cases, prohibitively expensive) to consume animal products without contributing to mistreatment and cruelty towards animals. I don’t think there’s any justification for that. Most people wouldn’t. That’s why the meat/animal product industries fight hard against having to disclose the source and ethics of their animal products.

Do I think “everyone should be vegan?” No. But I do think that anyone should have other options than “contribute to the mistreatment of animals” and “be vegan”, and we don’t live in a world where that’s possible; given those options i have to be vegan.

I would remain vegan even if a third option was available; we live in the future where it’s not difficult to eat an animal-free diet (except due to your own wealth vs the capitalist large corporations that own most of agriculture in the modern world and/or profit off the parts they don’t own by pretending they “invented and therefore own” seeds).

The only reason meat is a cheap option for you is because the grains (which are unhealthy for the animals) are profitable on a “dollars invested” vs “sale value of the resulting meat” scale, which is the only scale that really matters. Meat is cheap because the government gives out farm welfare to farmers growing vegetables and grains that aren’t fit for human consumption to feed to animals. If we gave those same subsidies to people farming organic and cruelty-free products, they’d be the cheapest option instead.

In any case, I don’t see a moral justification to eating animals in todays world. I don’t think that “everyone should be vegan”, i think that people should have a choice other than “contribute to animal mistreatment” and “being vegan”, and that choice shouldn’t be based on the profitability of animal cruelty.