If you have no choice about what you eat, obviously you can’t make a different choice. You simply have no choice. There are many reasons why people can find themselves in situations where they have no choice about what they eat, as discussed here.

Access, education, and bandwidth are also all big barriers that prevent many people from switching to a plant-based diet.

If you’re in a dire or impoverished enough situation that eating meat is absolutely necessary for your survival, certainly no one can hold that against you. I would obviously love for no one to find themselves in such dire circumstances in the first place. But the fact is, people do face these dire circumstances every day, around the globe and right here in our own communities. There are many ways that we can help locally and internationally, and maybe someday fewer people will find themselves having to scrape by to survive.

For the rest of us, who are fortunate enough not to be in such dire circumstances, everything we eat is a choice. Many people are already making different choices, like eating humane meat, with the goal of reducing harm. Other people don’t want to deal with it, or can’t be bothered to. But just because somebody hasn’t put thought into what they choose to eat, or has decided just to stick to eating what they’re already used to eating, that doesn’t mean that their actions aren’t a choice. Every time you order one thing off the menu instead of another, or grab one item off the grocery shelf instead of another, you’re making a choice. Is it a choice that aligns with your values, and the impact you want to have on the world and on your fellow earthlings?