“Veganism is your personal choice. You do you, and I’ll do me.”

Partly fair — nobody can choose for someone else. But a choice with a victim isn't only personal.

This is often said kindly, as a way of keeping the peace. And part of it is right: you can’t make someone else’s choices for them, and pushing rarely helps.

Personal choices are about you

Most of what we call personal — your music, your haircut, your hobbies, whether you like coriander — affects only you. Nobody else pays for it.

This one has someone else in it

When a choice involves another being who can be hurt, it stops being only personal. Most people already agree with this: nobody calls hurting a dog a personal choice.

The animals we eat can be hurt in the same way. In 2012, a group of neuroscientists signed the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, stating that all mammals and birds — and many other animals — have the brain structures that generate conscious experience. A cow, a pig or a chicken is someone, not something. And they are the one party who doesn’t get a say in “you do you”.

You can still respect each other

Respecting a person doesn’t mean agreeing with them. You can leave someone to make their own choices, stay close to them, and still be honest about why you made yours. If anything changes minds over time, it’s usually that — not winning an argument.

Saying it at the table

“You’re right, I can’t choose for you, and I’m not trying to. I just don’t see it as only personal — the animal doesn’t get a choice.”

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