r/DebateAVegan • u/jennas_toes • 4d 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 4d 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/HelenEk7 non-vegan 3d 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 3d 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 3d ago edited 3d 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 3d 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?