I don't volunteer either piece of information, but sooner or later someone is going to overhear me ordering vegan food or see me opening my lunch and the dreaded conversation will have to happen. I wish people would just let me make my own food choices in private without making a big thing about it.
But they feel attacked. They want to continue living in blissful ignorance of how animals are treated or how bad it is for the environment. Same as windows users who don't want to be reminded what corporate cucks they are. Some even go so far as to become utter bootlickers (see also Elon Musk fanboys)
I usually ask when someone eats any exotic cereals or processed (tofu, seitan) to 1 have something to talk about (I very much enjoy tofu and all uncommon cereals) 2 know their dietary restrictions to avoid offering them meat or taking care of that whenever there's an outing. You know, small talk.
The only class I ever had bring it up was my optional college level philosophy class, and even then I’m pretty sure it was more from the professor than the school. I freaking love that man for it, he changed my life. If you want to learn how animals are treated here, most of the time you gotta do the research yourself. Regrettably, very few people care enough to do so…
What sucks is that you have to keep it for yourself, otherwise people will think negatively of you. Because for some reason caring about animals or the climate is cringe or something idk, like it's something to almost be embarrassed about. Which is doubly strange when animal abuse is often considered very bad by those very same people.
But I guess for many caring about other people in general is cringe as well, as long as they are sufficiently emotionally distanced, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I just wish it wasn't, and that caring for others was the baseline more than anything else.
Yeah, the stereotype drives me nuts. Like, yes, food is a big part of day-to-day life and sometimes I need to explain when asked why I'm not eating if there's nothing for me at, say, a company event. I try to avoid it as much as possible and just say I'm not hungry.