I feel there is always a disconnect when the labels omnivore, vegetarian and vegan come into play. People see the world as they are and so if they have a bias to a particular ideology it becomes difficult to see the other side clearly.
Also, there are so many facts on each side, that regardless of truth anyone can find what they are looking for.
Life eats life and suffering is a part of life. It is in our vain attempts to be comfortable and protected that we have Disney-fied the animal world. Most animals are far from cute and cuddly but they are miraculous extraordinary things. Being uncomfortable and challenged to the extreme is exactly what we are designed for and we should in some way seek those things out.
The absolute reality is that humans simply would not be here if we had not been hunters and favoured animal sources of nutrition over anything else. We have survived decades, possibly hundreds of years of little sunlight as a result of volcanic explosions in the distant past where the only conceivable way to survive was to eat animal flesh. The population was reduced to a couple of thousand individuals that subsisted on what was available on the seashore. Aside from that almost without question every indigenous culture hunts as a major component of their lifeway.
Nobody wants cruelty and the industrial style agriculture, whether it be for plants or animals is horrendous and driving this world into crises. Even biodynamic permaculture has its flaws and the ethical and moral arguments for vegetarianism and veganism fall away when we look at humans a caretakers of the earth and when you realise that everything must die. Veganism and Vegetarians come from a place of fear and specifically a fear of one’s own death. But people who eat too much meat or eat meat unconsciously are also deeply fearful as they strive for control over the natural world. That is impossible.
The ideal is to live a hunter gatherer lifestyle where there is no waste and where humans become one with the natural world. But that way of life for the vast majority of humanity is impossible. So we do our best, we strive for compassion and understanding and we try to do good. That's all that matters.
nicely put.