Great post from Jim Henley commenting on this post at the Atlantic.

Fisher, I think, overstates the case of how hard it is to be vegan. Not that I am one, but it certainly doesn’t require the heroic level of asceticism he suggests. I mean, I’m a mere lacto-ovo veggie, but, at this point, it’s really easy. Yes, there was a period of adjustment (learning new recipes, telling people, etc.), but now I’d actually have to go out of my way to eat meat. Moreover, I eat well and healthily – mine is hardly an ascetic lifestyle. So, I have a hard time imagining that eliminating dairy and eggs would be that much harder.

As it happens, I recently read Jeffrey Masson’s The Face On Your Plate, which makes the case for veganism particularly well. There’s a strong case to be made that factory farmed dairy and eggs are actually worse than meat, from the perspective of animal suffering. Even their free range alternatives involve some highly questionable practices. Masson’s book definitely made me think more seriously about taking that next step…