Your Mileage May Vary is an advice column offering you a unique framework for thinking through your moral dilemmas. It’s based on value pluralism — the idea that each of us has multiple values that are equally valid but that often conflict with each other. To submit a question, fill out this anonymous form. Here’s this week’s question from a reader, condensed and edited for clarity:

I typically eat vegetarian, and have considered going fully vegan out of concern for animal welfare. But lately my on-again, off-again gastrointestinal problems have been acting up, and I’ve had to go back on a more restricted diet to manage my symptoms — no spice, no garlic or onions, nothing acidic, and nothing caffeinated. Sticking to a “bland” diet is hard enough, but doing so while vegetarian is very difficult when things like tomatoes and onions and grapefruits are off the table.

I know a lot of people with these issues eat fish or meat, and some medical professionals recommend drinking chicken bone broth to soothe flare-ups. I don’t want to abandon my commitment to animal welfare while my gut sorts itself out, but my food options are limited right now. How should I approach this?

Dear Would-Be Vegetarian,

You’re not alone in finding it hard to stick to a purely vegetarian diet. Only 5 percent of American adults say they’re vegetarian or vegan. What’s more, one study found that 84 percent of people who adopt those diets actually go back to eating meat at some point. And most of them aren’t even dealing with the gastrointestinal problems you face.

So, it speaks to the depth of your moral commitment that you’re really wrestling with this. I’ll have some concrete suggestions for you in a bit, but first I want to emphasize that how you approach the question of meat-eating will depend on your underlying moral theory.

There’s a classic split in moral philosophy between deontologists and utilitarians. A deontologist is someone who thinks an action is moral if it’s fulfilling a duty — and we have universal duties like, “always treat others as ends in themselves, never as means to an end.” From that perspective, killing an animal for food would be inherently morally wrong, because you’re treating the animal as a means to an end.

Meanwhile, a utilitarian is someone who thinks that an action is moral if it produces good consequences — and behaving morally means producing the most happiness or well-being possible, or reducing the most suffering possible. Utilitarian philosophers like Peter Singer argue that we should be reducing, and ideally eliminating, the suffering that animals endure at our hands.

Deontologists and utilitarians are often pitted against each other, but they actually have one big thing in common: They both believe in a universal moral principle — whether it’s “always treat others as ends in themselves” or “always maximize happiness.”

A lot of people find that comforting, because it offers certainty about how we should act. Even if acting morally requires hard sacrifices, it’s incredibly soothing to think “If I just do X,........

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