This is untrue, as the animals you are eating are fed and raised on plants, which are harvested with the machines that potentially kill the field animals. So even accounting for that, fewer animals will die.
Also, animals tend to migrate out of fields during harvesting, and relocate (which is still not good! But better than being ground up by machines)
The animals I'm eating aren't fed by slash-and-burn soya or insecticide-grown vegetables.
> animals tend to migrate out of fields during harvesting,
Farmers don't deal with rodents and other pests by encouraging them to migrate.
Your net consumption of plants is reduced when you reduce your consumption of animals, friend. How do you figure it would cause the death of more total animals?
>While I assign pretty significant utilitarian value to "stop eating animals", it still falls a few orders of magnitude short of "provide for the health and wellbeing of humans".
People get along just fine eating only legumes and grains and a few other plants sprinkled in.
Cattle grazing causes less animal death than industrial plant agriculture (land clearing, pest control, insecticide usage, etc.).
> People get along just fine eating only legumes and grain
No they don't. Healthy vegans are few and far between. Not that the SAD is much (or any) better.
Even grass fed beef are fed fodder which is the result of industrial plant agriculture.
>No they don't. Healthy vegans are few and far between.
Yes they do. Healthy vegans are way more common than you think. There is nothing unique about meat that can't be obtained from plant-based foods.
You can easily check if a vegan is actually following a vegan diet without cheating, because after a few years they will develop the sunken eyes and hollow collarbones, definitely not looking healthy.
Maybe your are lying or in denial? I have first hand experience with the cult like properties of the vegan movement. It's very clear from how ex-vegans - people how really tried to embrace veganism, but had to quit because of health issues - are harassed by current vegans, any criticism of the movement cannot be tolerated and ex-vegans are very dangerous as they expose that veganism is not for everyone.
> And why does the American Dietetic Association officially state that a vegan diet is completely fine for all stages of life?
Lobbyism? Research some of the former controversies. The name is Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics now by the way.
Also would you be interested in having a zoom call with me, or some other vegans, to see that we don’t at all look unhealthy? We can clear this up very quickly, I think.
Cattle are fed the byproducts of human agriculture that humans refuse to eat. Anything else cattle are fed (scrubland plants, grass, etc.) is extremely low-impact.
> Healthy vegans are way more common than you think.
The vast majority of vegans I know are clearly malnourished. Only the ones who exhibit fairly herculean effort manage to maintain a good physique. OTOH, the vast majority of people I know who maintain an extremely animal-heavy (or animal-exclusive) diet show visible indicators of extremely good health (good skin condition, high muscle mass, good bone development, good teeth, etc.)
> There is nothing unique about meat that can't be obtained from plant-based foods.
Nutrition science is not at a state where we can make this statement conclusively, but what we do know conclusively is that it's at least extremely difficult to get a complete nutritional profile from plants, whereas it's very easy to do so from animal products.
And there is no reason those byproducts can't be repurposed for other uses. You say this like they only eat byproducts, yet 70% of the soy production in the US goes to feeding cattle.
>The vast majority of vegans I know are clearly malnourished.
How many vegans do you know exactly?
>visible indicators of extremely good health
Visible indicators are a dubious way of measuring health. I also get the sense that you are comparing vegans who aren't interested in personal health to omnivores/carnivores who are. In other words, the vast majority of vegans who aren't interested in their health are ... unhealthy. The vast majority of people I know who eat animal products have high blood pressure and are at least pre-diabetic among other things.
>whereas it's very easy to do so from animal products.
We wouldn't be supplementing dairy with vitamins if this were actually the case. If you're talking about complete proteins then soy, buckwheat, hemp, chia seed, and spirulina fit the bill. If grown locally, quinoa. Already common combinations that make complete proteins are beans and rice, barley and lentils. This isn't anymore difficult than cooking a steak.
If you're talking about vitamins, then I hate to break it to you but you have to supplement even on an animal-based diet.
The intent of beyond burger, I think, is not to be a meat substitute every time you would currently eat meat, but instead a nice tasting treat food. Sure, it’s salty and full of saturated fats, but I only have them once a month.
It's simpler to just use normal ingredients without meat. Corn and beans is a tasty combo that's ridiculously easy to make with an instant pot (electric pressure cooker) and the plants combine to give you complete protein. Dump a cup of dry beans into the pot (20 pound bag from Costco is about 20 bucks and keeps forever), cover with water, close lid and press the "beans" button, and go back to whatever you were doing on your computer. About 40 minutes later (they go by fast since you are paying zero attention to the cooking) there are some loud beeps. Let out the pressure, dump in a can of corn and maybe some spicy pasta sauce, stir and serve. Or do similar with rice instead of corn, add some green vegetables, etc.
The above is quite a filling vegan main course for about $1 per person. No need for techno burgers of insect fritters or any of that weirdness. The instant pot is a life changer-- even more useful than a microwave imho.
We are, at the very least, decades away from having a complete enough understanding of nutrition to safely replace the nutritional value of beef with a substitute fake beef product. Once we accomplish that, there are some second-order effects to worry about, like increasing single-path reliance on complex agrochemical supply chains to meet basic nutritional needs.
It's also worth keeping in mind that living off plants generally kills more total animals (although smaller animals) than living off medium-large animals.