LOL...I'm laughing because the old cliché really is true. The first question anyone asks a vegan is where do they get their protein? My answer is always "I get it from the same place that gorillas, rhinos, elephants, giraffes and all of the other herbivores get it, plants! Hemp seeds, Chia seeds, Chic peas, Flax seeds, lentils, beans and legumes, broccoli, seaweed and algae and on and on are all good sources of protein. There is protein everywhere in the plant world, everywhere. You just have to eat enough of the things that contain them.

I really don't think eating fruits and vegetables is in anyway "extreme" compared to eating meat and dairy? I agree with some of what you said, there must be a balance of the right things in our diets to stay healthy. The point of the vegan diet is to do exactly that, eat the correct balance of healthy foods to provide the best health possible. I don't believe that eating meat and dairy is the healthy way, but that's my personal opinion and I respect the choices you make for you own diet. Both of my brother in-laws, my mother and father, my grandmother(who died blind and infirm) and myself all have diabetes and all eat a meat and dairy diet. My one bil's father lost both legs and died of diabetes. Those are just the people that are in my immediate family circle, not the hundreds of other friends and their relatives who have suffered the same fate. The empirical evidence suggests (that for me anyways) veganism works and is reversing conditions that I've suffered with for many years. If you consider that "extreme", then so be it.

In closing, you mention calories in and calories out as the simple answer to all of anyone's health problems. The thing that you fail to mention is where those calories came from, and what our body does with them once they enter our digestive tract. My one brother in-law weighs 155lbs, is 5'8" and doesn't have an once of visible fat anywhere on his body. He's been a runner and a bicyclist his whole life. He was struck with type II adult onset diabetes at around age 35. He has high blood pressure and very high cholesterol and still exercises daily, was eating a "balanced" diet and still has all of these problems. Why? His diet, high in fat and cholesterol is why. Those things come from a meat and dairy based diet, no matter what the "balance" is. He saw the immediate change it made in me and watched me stop taking insulin and lose weight, all while eating a lot of good food and never being hungry. He and my sister decided to try their own version of what I was doing, as they didn't think they could completely commit to a hundred percent veganism. So they adopted a hybrid kind of vegetarianism with some limited consumption of meat and dairy, but scaled WAY back from their normal meat based diet. He immediately (within two weeks) reduced his insulin dependency by 2/3rd's. His cholesterol dropped 40 points and in a few short weeks he'd gotten done what he's been trying to do for almost 20 years! He told me yesterday that he's now going to drop the rest of his meat and dairy intake as it's been proven to him that those things do bad stuff to his body. While all of this was happening for him, my sister, obese most of her adult life after having children also lost 20 lbs so far and says she feels better than she's felt in decades. The only regret any of us have is that we weren't raised this way and didn't adopt this lifestyle 30 years ago.

Your mileage may vary