What are some of the things you haven't eaten in so long they basically don't even register as edible any more?
I've got a pretty severe sensitivity to -- of all things -- sugar. (I know, "sugar" isn't very precise, but I'm pretty sure it's either glucose, fructose, or sucrose.) I virtually never eat anything with added sugar or anything with any significant amount of natural sugar. And I've eaten that way for like 20 years now. I'm practically blind to half the produce department (any "sweet" fruits like apples, pears, cherries, grapes, oranges, etc) at the grocery store, let alone the candy isle.
I didn't eat meat for 25 years. When people around me would be eating a meat centered meal I would feel like they must still be hungry when they were done because only like 25% of their plate was food? I couldn't imagine how meat could be filling, since it wasn't food.
I have a connective tissue disorder that makes my muscles, tendons and ligaments prone to tearing. Eating extra protein won't help, per se, since it's just a bad genetic code for making those structures, but being protein deprived wasn't doing me any favors. Of course it's possible to get enough plant protein, but it's a lot of work and you have to eat about twice the volume of food to get enough. I had major depression and eating at all was difficult, so a big bulky vegan meal was just not happening.
Since eating meat my joints no longer pull apart like taffy at the slightest strain. And I have enough iron to donate blood regularly! The depression is better too, but I've had a lot of therapy and done a lot of work as well, so I can't say if it's related.
I am lucky to live in an area where it's very easy to get all animal products from nice small farms where animals are well cared for and just have "one bad day." It was still very hard at first, I would weep while preparing a chicken for the oven. But I've gotten used to it.
No, I’ve never met any real life vegan or vegetarian that would purposefully put a living beings life in danger for the sake of not putting living beings in danger.
Because that would be very very stupid of them. Maybe I don’t hang around enough idiots though.