> including from tofu made in a factory, out of soy grown on another continent, on ground that used to be rainforest and fertilized with nitrogen produced at the cost of huge carbon emissions, then shipped across an ocean
or from tofu made from organic, local soy. Why would you want it to come from another country and produced in horrible ways? Of course one can do anything badly, so let's focus on realistic, proper ways to do things.
Unlike raising one's own animals in awesome conditions, which is very costly and basically requires to be a full time job so which most people can't realistically do, I can just drop by the organic shop nearby and buy my organic, local tofu easily enough. Which I do.
Around 80% of the soy is produced to feed animals so that argument does not even work. If you eat meat, you are probably actually doing both at the same time and probably indirectly consume a lot more soy than a vegetarian. I see that you actually raise your own animals in other comments, so maybe not you, and congrats, but your situation does not generalize well.
[edit: oh, you meant the parent comment is a strawman?]
Why? The parent comment says that you can choose to eat "proteins" in any way possible, from eating horrible soy to eating meat from animals raised in awesome conditions.
I argue that this is not really a useful statement (I want to say, it actually feels misleading and dishonest and that's why I reacted. OP writes about changing one's mind and absorbing new information, a prerequisite of this is to be honest with oneself - the thing that most vegetarian people, who weren't born like this, have already done because they had to to change their minds).
I do want to eat properly and that's what we are discussing. I point out that while the average person can realistically buy local, organic soy easily, one can't do so for meat from properly raised animals.
Of course I can choose to eat horrible soy (I guess? Not sure where I would find tofu made from it actually), like I can choose to eat horrible meat. But if we are to do things the proper way, neither of these options are good. Though eating horrible meat (which includes the horrible soy!) is the realistic option for meat because that's what scales.
(where "horrible meat" means "meat from animals who suffered")
The horrible soy is not even worth mentioning because it harms the pro-meat argument. Like, why even mention the horrible soy to the vegetarians? It's laughable.
or from tofu made from organic, local soy. Why would you want it to come from another country and produced in horrible ways? Of course one can do anything badly, so let's focus on realistic, proper ways to do things.
Unlike raising one's own animals in awesome conditions, which is very costly and basically requires to be a full time job so which most people can't realistically do, I can just drop by the organic shop nearby and buy my organic, local tofu easily enough. Which I do.
Around 80% of the soy is produced to feed animals so that argument does not even work. If you eat meat, you are probably actually doing both at the same time and probably indirectly consume a lot more soy than a vegetarian. I see that you actually raise your own animals in other comments, so maybe not you, and congrats, but your situation does not generalize well.