Is empathy not a natural impulse for you?

I'm an absurdist and while I don't believe in inherit ethics, hurting others makes me feel guilt because I can empathise with their pain. Avoiding causing harm is just as natural to me as craving food. Eating bacon makes me think of the pig that suffered for it and takes away my appetite. Therefore even from a completely self-serving perspective being vegan makes sense, because I enjoy food more when I don't have to think about tortured animals.

I don't really buy nihilism as a reason to reject everything other than your most basic impulses. You can still want the world to be a better place while knowing how meaningless it all is, just as much as you can prefer beef over falafel, knowing how completely meaningless that is. To me a lack of inherit meaning means freedom to do whatever you want. Basic impulses are a very small part of that and forcing yourself to reject anything beyond them is no different to forcing yourself to reject your impulses and search for a meaning. It's still a chain even if it's on backwards. Long term vs short term goals vs literally grabbing objects as they appear in front of you are all as equally meaningless, so do what makes you happy. If that's forcing yourself to only care about sex and food that's fine but being vegan wouldn't make you any less nihilistic. If anything, caring so much about nihilism that it influences your actions is what makes you less nihilistic.