I asked her if she'd considered what had been on those rolling hills before the vineyard was planted. Her face took on a bit of a blank look, and I explained: before the vineyard, those acres were home and a source of food to heaven knows how many critters -- deer, squirrels, mice, lizards, bobcats, coyotes, birds, jackrabbits, and so on. Once the land was cleared and cultivated, all those creatures were displaced.
I asked her about the broccoli on her plate, and if she ever gave much thought to all the water ecosystems disrupted or starved when water was diverted to irrigate those fields of broccoli -- which land, incidentally, also used to be home to all manner of critters before they were cleared and cultivated to grow the broccoli. I asked if she'd ever considered how many cups of broccoli she'd have to eat in order to get the same amount of calcium that I was getting from the single glass of milk that I was having with my own meal.
I asked her if she could name any byproducts from broccoli or vineyards. I pointed out that the critter from which my steak came from had also produced an enormous array of byproducts, such as leather; medicines; glues; bone marrow for gelatin used in everything from marshmallows to (in pre-digital camera days) film; tallow used for all kinds of things including the processing of steel; food for her beloved dog and cats; and chemicals used in such a huge variety of items that even if she never ate meat or wore leather, every day of her life she was a kid of meat eater. I reminded her that she and her kids depended on things made by the partial use of animal byproducts in either the item itself or in its manufacturing process -- the rubber in the tires on her car, the asphalt on the roads she drove, the industrial adhesives that were part of the construction of her home and the buildings where she worked, etc., etc. And I pointed out that in many cases, those animals grazed on open uncultivated land where trees, birds, jackrabbits, bobcats, coyotes, deer, lizards, and all kinds of other critters co-existed without being disturbed.
I could tell that she had never even considered such things, but to be fair, she'd always lived in urban areas and really had very little connection with the way things really work. A skyscraper and a bird's nest are just as "equal" in the big picture; the only REAL difference is that one was made by homo sapiens, and the other was made by birds. We're each as much a part of nature. She thinks that her philosophy puts her closer to nature; I think it alienates her from it.
What someone needs to do is go throw red paint on every urban garden they can find!