im not vegan, but the last couple days have had me much more interested in it. I have a couple I suppose theoretical questions about the vegan diet though. First of all, what philosophically separates plants and animals? Since we are talking about animal liberation due to them being living things, why do we kill plants which are also living things? Or is there a deeper philosophical difference?

Also how much animal death is acceptable before something becomes non-vegan? For example, I used to work on a farm and i have many memories of picking insects off of leaves and crushing them between my fingers. Obviously there are ways to reduce pests sustainably, but even on the most holistic and sustainable farm there will still be problems with pests. The farm I worked had a dog to deal with larger pests, and occasionally we'd find a dead rabbit or something in the fields that the dog had killed. Another guy I knew (I didn't work for him) would take his gun and try to shoot rabbits that came onto his farm. Do either of these things have any effect on the veganism of a plant product?

I hope these don't come off as stirring the pot or something, they're just theoretical questions I've had since I've been thinking more about veganism.

Another question I had, since I used to do a lot of fermentation - one often hears B12 thrown around a lot with regards to veganism, since animal products are often better sources for B12 than plant products. So one often hears that vegans have to take B12 supplements. However, I recently learned that B12 is actually produced by bacteria, which many ruminants then absorb in their guts. Is there any vegan fermented product that has high levels of B12, since its not animals but bacteria that produce it? I'm wondering if one can cultivate the growth of B12-producing bacteria in some sort of vegan fermented product.