Ok, so in your opinion, veganism is some sort of spiritual calling, the highest ethical practice. It reminds me of religions when they splinter into sub-sections. All pretty much doing the same thing, but arguing with each other about the details.

I was an 'ethical' vegan twice (vegetarian for 17 years too). I want to cause as little harm as possible. Eventually, for reasons I won't bore you with, I stopped. Now I eat meat. I don't like that animals die but I choose to buy where I know the animals live good lives, are fed their natural diet, and they are slaughtered humanely (as humanely as possible).

You know that many vegan crops are sprayed with chemicals to kill insects and other 'pests'. During harvesting, countless small animals are chewed up in their combine harvesters. I can't imagine their deaths are pleasant. Also, the soil needs to be fertilised. To do this, grain and vegetable farmers buy and transport tonnes of faeces from factory farms (those animals that suffer an awful existence). You may not be exploiting the animals for their flesh, but your food supplier uses them too. That's if you buy your food from shops or supermarkets or markets.

A bowl of cornflakes may look harmless on the surface. But when you dig behind Big Food and Big Pharma, you see they're all holding hands in the background.

Lots of beings feel pain. There's loads of science online where you can check it out. Even plants have been demonstrated to react to injuries.