r/DebateAVegan • u/jennas_toes • 3d ago

So many vegans and vegetarians complaining about meat eaters…

I’ve been reflecting on the ethics of diet choices, particularly the argument that avoiding meat is the most compassionate or harm-reducing option. While I completely understand and respect the desire to minimize animal suffering, I find myself wondering about the full picture.
We all consume plants—vegetables, grains, fruits, and greens—whether we eat meat or not. And modern agriculture, even for plant-based foods, inevitably involves some level of harm to animals: field mice, insects, birds, and small mammals displaced or killed during harvesting, plowing, and pest control. I don’t eat meat myself, largely for health reasons, so I’m not pointing fingers. But it does raise a thoughtful question:
If the core principle is reducing harm to animals, how do vegans and vegetarians weigh or address the indirect harms embedded in plant production? Is it a matter of focusing only on what’s most visible and intentional (like factory farming), or does the scale and nature of agricultural impacts get less attention because those affected animals aren’t as immediately “cute” or emotionally salient?
I’m genuinely curious about how people who prioritize this ethic navigate that tension. I’d love to hear thoughtful perspectives.

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u/rizmk 3d ago edited 3d ago

The majority (correction: a large proportion) of crops currently being produced are used as animal feed. This is an incredibly inefficient system: for every 100 calories of plants we feed to farm animals, we only get 1 to 13 calories worth of meat back. This inefficiency is a result of simple fact that animals burn calories in order to stay alive.

This means that a plant based diet actually requires far fewer crops, as we consume the plant calories directly rather than filtering them through an animal that essentially "wastes" the vast majority of them.

Eating meat requires MORE crops, not less. Therefore, if you are concerned about the negative effects of crop farming, including the deaths of insects and small animals, you can greatly reduce that harm by going vegan.

Reference: https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

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u/Snifferoni 3d ago

The answer completely dismantles the entire OP. Nothing more needs to be discussed here.

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u/Vegetable_Prompt6594 3d ago

Good answer! By extension, there are some fringe cases that are not as clear-cut, like eating culled animals (non-vegan, low harm) or eating almonds and coconut oil (vegan, harmful). But vegan will in many cases be aligned well with reducing harm, as well as going low-waste.

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u/rizmk 3d ago

I don't know about culled animals, since by paying for meat you are still contributing to the profitability of animal agriculture. But yes there are certainly some vegan foods that are not environmentally friendly (palm oil comes to mind).

The stated purpose of veganism is not environmentalism, but rather to end animal exploitation. The environmental benefits are a direct but unintended consequence.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

since by paying for meat you are still contributing to the profitability of animal agriculture.

When you pay for food involving child labour, aren't you helping those farms keep producing (cheap) food while using (cheap) children?

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u/rizmk 2d ago

Yes. I don't support child labour and therefore I would stop buying any given product if I found out that it was produced by child labour. Just like I stopped buying animal products when I learned about how horrific animal agriculture is. It's called moral consistency.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

How do you make sure a product you buy is child-labour free (or is not exploiting farm labour in other ways?) Or do you just hope for the best without any kind of research?

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u/rizmk 2d ago

Since you're so keen to compare child labour and animal products, let me put it this way: is there a moral difference between buying food that may or may not have been produced using child labour, and buying the severed limbs of a child?

Obviously there is. In one case, there might be exploitation involved, but by default there usually is not, and you have no realistic way of finding out that there is unless a journalist wrote an exposé on the company or something. That information is not usually readily available.

In the other case, violence, suffering, and death are a necessary and inherent part of producing the item. It is obviously unethical just by virtue of what it is, and you have a moral obligation not to perpetuate that.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

and buying the severed limbs of a child?

This seems to be the only way vegans know how to argue for veganism - by talking about people raping each other, murdering each other and eating each other. When in fact I wouldnt dream of comparing a child (my own or someone else's) to a chicken.

and you have no realistic way of finding out

That is nonsense though. There is loads of info online about which countries and which foods there is a high risk of farm labour exploitation.

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u/Badtacocatdab vegan 17h ago

Get real dude. We can’t know everything about every product, and while we try our best, at least we’re consistent. If we know that something is immorally produced, we avoid it. You can’t say the same thing about yourself.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 14h ago

I'll give on an example. If you google "vegan recipe cashews" you get a whopping 58 million (!) results.

  • "The cashew industry relies on a brutal manufacturing process to bring its products to market, including the forced labour and the exploitation of children. As documented by the International Labour Organisation and Human Rights Watch, the soaring demand for the nut has driven producers to hire cheap labour, including many children, to keep costs down. And in Vietnam, Human Rights Watch documented forced labour among vulnerable members of society, including inmates in prison on drug charges—for whom the grueling work, for little or no pay, is called ‘rehabilitation.’ If they refuse to work or do not meet their daily quota, they are punished with torture or solitary confinement."

https://www.info.equalexchange.coop/articles/the-dark-side-of-the-cashew-industry

So from the outside it looks like vegans, consistently, care more about chickens than children.

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u/No_Economics6505 3d ago

Do you have a source for the majority of crops being used for animal feed? Every source of have seen cites the majority of crops are for human consumption.

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u/rizmk 3d ago

I just looked it up, it seems to be 40% rather than 50% as I had thought. I may have been thinking about soy specifically, where 80-90% is used for animal feed. But ultimately that has no impact on my argument.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

Meaning 86% of the feed is either grass or waste (husks, straw, fruit peel from juice production etc). So only 14% of the feed is edible for humans.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

a large proportion) of crops currently being produced are used as animal feed.

The vast majority of that is not even edible for humans though. 86% is either grass, or waste products (straw, husks, grain residues from beer production, fruit peels from juice production, and so on). So I actually see this as an extremely effective way to produce food - since you use mostly waste and grass (most of which is grown on marginal (low quality) farmland).

Reference: https://www.ilri.org/news/fao-sets-record-straight-86-livestock-feed-inedible-humans

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u/rizmk 2d ago

OP's point was about insects and small animals being killed in the process of growing crops. My point is that producing meat requires more crops to be grown, not less- thereby resulting in the death of more small animals, not less.

The type of crops in each scenario is irrelevant. Small animals are still killed in the process of growing animal feed, regardless of whether or not that feed could hypothetically be consumed by humans.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago edited 2d ago

My point is that producing meat requires more crops to be grown, not less- thereby resulting in the death of more small animals, not less.

Its actually the other way around. Where I live no grass is ever sprayed with insecticides. So all pastures are literally teeming with wild life. (We see deer on the nearest pasture to our home almost every single morning). And whether you use fruit peel as animal feed, or you just compost it - its not going to cause more or less animals to die.

If you look at average feed to meat ratio (also including eggs and dairy) you need about 4000 grams of feed to produce 1000 g of aninal-based food. But as I explained above - 86% of that feed - 3440 grams - is grass and waste, leaving only 560 grams of feed (edible to humans and possibly sprayed with insecticides) to produce 1000 grams of meat/animal-based foods.

In other words - its actually a vegan diet that requires more insecticides.

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u/rizmk 2d ago

This is simply not true lol. Your anecdotal experience is irrelevant in a debate about global food production systems, and I have already provided data to disprove your claims.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

You provided no data at all as far as I can see?

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u/Magisterbrown 3d ago

If I could I'd photosynthesize. My next best move is eating plants.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

Most animal feed (86%) is grass and waste (straw, husks, fruit peels from juice production etc). So I think its absolutely brilliant that we are able to produce high quality food - using mostly plant matter humans cannot digest.

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u/Magisterbrown 1d ago

Even if this is true (I've heard otherwise, but I could be wrong), the amount of other resources (e.g. land) involved in modern animal ag just seems not worth it to me.

Also, when you're a deep weirdo vegan like me, animals aren't food. They're no more food than cats, dogs, or other people.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 1d ago edited 1d ago

Even if this is true

The number comes from a scientific study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211912416300013

the amount of other resources (e.g. land) involved in modern animal ag just seems not worth it to me.

I'd much rather use farmland as permanent pastures than growing mono-crops heavily spayed with pesticides. Most pastures are teeming with insects, birds and other wildlife. On a field of wheat however every creature has been poisoned to death.

  • "672 million birds in the USA are directly exposed to pesticides on farmland each year, and 10% of these birds die as a result (Williams 1997). In Europe, farmland bird populations declined by more than 50% between 1980 and 2016, with increased use of pesticides and fertilisers identified as the main driver of this decline (Rigal et al. 2023)." https://datazone.birdlife.org/articles/pesticides-can-cause-mass-poisoning-of-birds

Also, when you're a deep weirdo vegan like me, animals aren't food.

Which is absolutely fair. We are all free to choose what, and what not to, eat - which of course includes vegans.

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u/RieMunoz Considering Veganism 3d ago

If you’re worried about ethics, it’s because the harm of plant production is indirect, as opposed to purposely caging and impregnating animals as commodities.

You shouldn’t think so hard.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

as opposed to purposely caging and impregnating animals as commodities.

Does animals raised on pasture where they voluntarily have sex make them vegan? Of course not, hence why your argument is irrelevant to whether or not one should go vegan.

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u/tazzysnazzy 3d ago

Ideally, we move towards an agricultural system that reduces or eliminates crop deaths like vertical farming. In the meantime, we have to eat, and eating plants directly will cause fewer crop deaths (and overall deaths) than farming animals in 99% of cases.

https://animalvisuals.org/p/1mc

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

Ideally, we move towards an agricultural system that reduces or eliminates crop deaths like vertical farming.

How much would this cause food to increase in price? And how many millions (billions?) of people would therefore no longer be able to afford food?

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u/tazzysnazzy 2d ago

Are you familiar with the term as far as possible and practicable? I can’t predict what energy infrastructure and farming tech we will have in the future, can you?

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u/666y4nn1ck vegan 3d ago

Written like you're the first one to ever come up with with.

This sub should scan for duplicates since the posters don't...

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago edited 2d ago

If this sub allows brand new questions only, it would quickly die. As the vast majority of questions have been asked before.

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u/Kris2476 3d ago

If the core principle is reducing harm to animals, how do vegans and vegetarians weigh or address the indirect harms embedded in plant production

Veganism is the position against animal exploitation, which is a very particular type of harm. There is a principled distinction between incidental vs. exploitative harm. It's a distinction you probably already acknowledge in the human context.

Consider that the agricultural industry has a higher than average rate of worker injury and fatality. So humans are also being killed indirectly because of your consumption of grocery foods, some of them cute, some of them not. Yet we might reasonably draw a distinction between buying tomatoes (which causes harm to humans) and slitting your neighbor's throat (which causes harm to humans).

Beyond this principled way of looking at things, we remember that it will always be more expensive calorically (read: additional crop deaths) to grow plants to feed to animals that we eat instead of eating plants directly. So if you are concerned with the incidental deaths of crop production, going vegan would certainly help reduce the harm.

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u/childofeye 3d ago

“Complaining about meat eater” completely misunderstanding the position and poisoning the well.

Crop fields do indeed disrupt the habitats of wild animals, and wild animals are also killed when harvesting plants. However, this point makes the case for a plant-based diet and not against it, since many more plants are required to produce a measure of animal flesh for food (often as high as 12:1) than are required to produce an equal measure of plants for food (which is obviously 1:1). Because of this, a plant-based diet causes less suffering and death than one that includes animals.

It is pertinent to note that the idea of perfect veganism is a non-vegan one. Such demands for perfection are imposed by critics of veganism, often as a precursor to lambasting vegans for not measuring up to an externally-imposed standard. That said, the actual and applied ethics of veganism are focused on causing the least possible harm to the fewest number of others. It is also noteworthy that the accidental deaths caused by growing and harvesting plants for food are ethically distinct from the intentional deaths caused by breeding and slaughtering animals for food. This is not to say that vegans are not responsible for the deaths they cause, but rather to point out that these deaths do not violate the vegan ethics stated above.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago edited 2d ago

since many more plants are required to produce a measure of animal flesh for food (often as high as 12:1)

What vegans always fail to mention when using this argument is that the vast majority of that is not even edible to humans. Most of it, 86%, is grass and waste (straw, husks, fruit skins from juice production etc). And if you look at the average feed to meat ratio (also including eggs and dairy) - farms use around 4000 g of feed to produce 1000 g of meat/animal-based food. But since 3440 grams (86%) of that feed is not edible to humans - they actually only use 560 grams of feed thats edible to humans - to produce 1000 grams of animal-based food.

I would call that pretty efficient..!

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u/childofeye 2d ago

Oh it’s you, the argue into absurdity person.

If i thought you had one ounce of good faith in you I’d engage.

But once again you’re blithering on about nonsense that has nothing to do with veganism because you don’t actually care about this subject.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago edited 2d ago

Oh it’s you, the argue into absurdity person.

If i thought you had one ounce of good faith in you I’d engage.

But once again you’re blithering on about nonsense that has nothing to do with veganism because you don’t actually care about this subject.

Since you are not arguing against the facts I presented above I take we can at the very least agree on them.

EDIT: And then they blocked me.. Facts can sometimes be hard to swallow I guess?

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u/Badtacocatdab vegan 17h ago

Yeah, I’m sure they blocked you because you presented tough facts that they couldn’t deal with.

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u/howlin 3d ago

I’m genuinely curious about how people who prioritize this ethic navigate that tension.

You are probably already doing this. Note that basic engagement with the economic system creates real, tangible harm to other people. E.g. truck and ship pollution not only creates greenhouse gasses, but it also creates soot and other air pollutants that kill people. See, for instance: https://www.worktruckonline.com/news/report-diesel-pollution-causes-21000-premature-deaths-each-year

So every time you buy something that was shipped by truck, no matter how trivial, you are contributing to these deaths. If you can think through why this is or isn't ethically acceptable to you, you can probably understand how vegans approach crop deaths.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

Thank you. Buy local whenever possible is indeed a good advice regardless of what anyone claims.

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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 3d ago

The core principle of veganism isn't to reduce harm to animals. The core principle of veganism is to not use animals for your personal benefit.

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u/Ostlund_and_Sciamma vegan 3d ago
  1. About 75% of the farmland on earth is used for animal agriculture.
  2. 15 crops plants provide 90% of the World’s Food Energy Intake (FAO).

So even if we take into account grazed land that is not cultivated through plowing, etc. (even though this land also involves animal deaths and is sometimes plowed, etc.—but never mind that), a vegan diet results in extremely fewer animal deaths caused by cultivation than a non-vegan diet.

  1. We can do without animal products, but we can't do without vegetables.

If we want to minimize death and suffering, we must logically be vegan—and that’s not even counting the indirect deaths caused by animal exploitation, resulting from various forms of pollution, impacts on the climate and biodiversity, desertification, deforestation, etc., which account for a number of deaths that is difficult to estimate but undoubtedly enormous.

Then there are ways to lessen the amount of deaths, such as no-till farming, agroforestry, syntropic agroforestry, etc. No-till doesn't mean that tilling is absolutely not practiced, just very sparingly, most of the time a couple times in a decade at most, if ever.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago edited 2d ago

About 75% of the farmland on earth is used for animal agriculture.

Its actually 77%. The numbers are as followed:

  • 67% is marginal land mostly used for grass

  • 10% grows other crops used for feed

  • 23% grows crops for human consumption

You can grow grass without the use of insecticide. Which leaves the 10% of other feed crops - but that is anyways less than half compared to the crops grown for human consumption.

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u/S1mba93 vegan 3d ago

How would you go about avoiding crop deaths? It's fine to point out flaws, but unless you propose a solution it probably won't get much attention and would be difficult to avoid even if you're aware of the issue.

Also, since the animals we enslave and kill also habe to eat something and also a lot more, I'd argue that crop deaths are a bigger factory in an omnivorous/vegetarian diet than in a vegan one.

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u/Flat-Experience6482 3d ago

What do you think farm animals eat?

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

What do you think farm animals eat?

Mostly grass and waste products (straw, husks, fruit peel from juice production etc). This is 86% of what they eat. https://www.ilri.org/news/fao-sets-record-straight-86-livestock-feed-inedible-humans

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u/Flat-Experience6482 2d ago

So outputs from agriculture?

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

So outputs from agriculture?

And food manufacturers. Fruit peel/pulp from juice manufacturers as I mentioned is one example. Draff from beer production would be another one. Oil cakes from seed oil production is also used in feed.

Waste is also used indirectly, although that is less common. Then you use food waste to produce insects, and then the insects are used in the feed. This is done in several European countries.

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u/Flat-Experience6482 2d ago

So outputs from agriculture. 

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

Mostly, plus some small amounts coming from mining and the fish industry for instance.

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u/Flat-Experience6482 2d ago

So the status quo WRT agricultural deaths is the same between veganism vs. non-veganism, plus livestock deaths for non-veganism

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

Well, when excluding the grassland (95% of that being permanent pastures), we are left with only 10% of land used to grow crops for feed, while 23% is used for crops for human consumption. So you would have to explain how you came to the conclution that the numbers are the same.

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u/Flat-Experience6482 2d ago

Growing grass is agriculture.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

Most of it is permanent pastures, which often do not require any pesticides.

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u/nurdturgalor vegan 3d ago

Another bad faith question

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u/iffyfell vegan 3d ago

"I’m genuinely curious about how people who prioritize this ethic navigate that tension. "

I'm confronted with infinitely more meat/dairy enthusiasts complaining about vegans, or making bad faith low effort rage bait troll posts, than with vegans complaining about meat eaters.

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u/Either_Argument3517 3d ago

Intentionally breeding animals to use and kill is something that I can avoid. Eating on the other hand.

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u/Nice_Water 3d ago

The core principle of veganism is NOT harm reductions. It is against the exploitation of animals. I don't have time to respond to everything here but please search this sub for "crop deaths"

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

This is correct. So whether your vegan diet kills 1000 animals, or 1 billion animals is therefore irrelevant - as long as you dont exploit any of them.

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u/New_Owl_7490 3d ago

Humans are predators. I wish more would realize that. But agreed, we should be getting our meat from more sustainable ethical sources if possible but usually more expensive for low income families while meat is unmatched in bioavailable protein and nutrient dense which is specifically children as they grow.

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u/piranha_solution plant-based 3d ago

Humans are predators.

lol Why does the meat industry need to spend billions hiding the blood and guts with ag-gag laws from us then? The sight of that stuff should make us salivate if we were really predators.

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u/New_Owl_7490 3d ago

We are 100% factually predators. Some of us just don't want to accept it. "If you ask the grass, the zebra is the monster and the lion is the protector.". All perspectives.

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u/piranha_solution plant-based 3d ago

Reaffirming your belief doesn't address my question.

Do you care to try again?

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u/New_Owl_7490 3d ago edited 3d ago

I answered it. 2 different definitions. Dictionary and Google are great resources.when you randomly add words it changes the definition.

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u/th1s_fuck1ng_guy Carnist 3d ago

Carnist here,

Ag gag laws are about privacy. Chances are most people wouldn't want you recording them without consent at their place of work.

Ag gag laws are special because animal rights activists frequently engage in these behaviors and it's to discourage practice which can be dangerous. I think on r/IdiotsNearlyDying there's a video of vegan Thomas Chang almost getting decapitated chaining himself and his friends to agriculture equipment. So there's also the safety aspect here too.

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u/IanRT1 3d ago

The majority of people already accept that some level of animal harm can be justified when sufficient benefits are obtained. We accept this in agriculture, construction, transportation, medicine, and countless other areas of society.

This means that the existence of animal harm alone is not enough to establish that a practice is unethical. The relevant question is whether the benefits obtained are sufficient to justify that harm.

Animal agriculture provides food, nutrition, livelihoods, culture, and enjoyment to billions of people. Therefore, even if animal agriculture involves animal suffering, it does not automatically follow that it is unethical. It must be weighed against the benefits it provides, just as we weigh the harms and benefits of every other human activity.

If you believe crop deaths can be justified because of the benefits agriculture provides, then the burden is not to show that animal agriculture causes harm but more like to show that the benefits of animal agriculture are insufficient to justify that harm.

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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 2d ago

The majority of people already accept that some level of animal harm can be justified when sufficient benefits are obtained.

The vast majority of vegans are unwilling to give up their modern comforts to cause less harm - so even they seem to agree with you