Henryscat, you consistantly state the immorality of eating meat, but also are equally scathing of the dairy industry. I don't agree with how judgemental you can be in regard to those who don't agree with you, but I do applaud your fundamental beliefs. However............
It's not as simple as you sometimes make it, this living with minimum harm. We don't eat meat, it's easy! But we do eat dairy products. Knowing the cruelty involved in the dairy industry, we've been making a concerted effort to cut down our consumption. We've been using Almond milk for hot bedtime drinks and on cereals (it's shite in coffee and tea) and our dairy milk consumption has reduced significantly. We tried some Soya yoghurt the other day which we enjoyed. However, further investigation of the Soya growing industry and we find that it is the direct cause of the deforestation of huge swathes of virgin Amazon rainforest beside other undesirable things.
It seems that we have the harm done to dairy cows and their progeny on one hand against the harm done to the Amazon on the other. it's not quite as straight forward as you would have us think this do no harm concept. So we weighed out the pro's and cons of both and came to the conclusion that by supporting the British dairy industry we are causing less global harm than by supporting the global Soya bean industry.
Whilst I would never condone the suffering incurred by the Dairy cow and her offspring, in our opinion the mass destruction of the Amazon rainforest, land that can never be replaced, alongside the langrabbing and slavery required to produce the soya, as well as the negative environmental affects of these activities is worse than that inflicted by the British dairy industry to produce dairy products. Being vegan might not directly cause the exploitation of animals, but if you eat any product such as soya that is directly linked with the mass destruction of the Amazon rainforest then you are directly linked with the destruction of animal habitat. It's not animal exploitation, but it could quite easily be animal species extinction
It ay easy this doing no harm!!