I actually disagree. I think it's difficult to be a healthy vegetarian (let alone a vegan) if you're in rural or poorer areas, as the majority of the US and indeed the world are. Most people aren't choosing their diets, they're eating what they can, or succumbing to billions of dollars of advertising carefully crafted to hypnotize them into brand loyalty to corporations dependent on factory farming. It's a fundamental flaw in market-based thinking: consumers often don't have serious choices or the information or resources to make good ones.

It's also a convenient escape hatch for irresponsible corporations and corrupt governments. "Well we agree there's a problem, but we can't fix it without unethical market regulations".

Consumers do not have enough pressure and tend to go for cheaper option rather than cleaner. And for avoiding imagined concentrated fears rather than diffuse long term loss. Which is why we're in the current predicament.