I very much like this attitude. I go weight lifting 3x a week, and as often as it is clean, I wear my “Conscious Muscle” t-shirt. I’ve met a couple other vegan lifters this way, and had some very engaging conversations with people who were sure that you can’t get enough protein on a vegan diet, let alone make muscle gains on a vegan diet.

I very much prefer this kind of “Vegan ambassadorship” to confrontation. I’ve had enough confrontations. As you rightly point out, they never end with someone going vegan.

When surrounded by non-vegans who for whatever reason feel it is necessary to mob you, I find the best defense is, “Look, I’m not asking you to go vegan. How about you let me eat what I want and just let me be?” In most all those cases, after 15 minutes or so someone at the table will decide it is important to tell you how much they have reduced their meat intake, or how they know it is important to reduce the amount of meat we all eat for cholesterol or the environment. That is when your good advice comes in. I just nod and say, “That’s great! Good for you!”