| > Ethics aside, that is an objective fact. It's actually not an objective fact. Compare two scenarios: 10 acres of rainforest were clearcut to grow palm oil to make the mayo 1/2 acre of grassland in Iowa that was previously used for corn is allocated to raise pastured happy chickens, rotated with market heirloom grains. They are allowed to live out their natural life, and are fed even after they stop producing eggs. Which of those scenarios has more animal cruelty? In one situation you are essentially committing genocide of an entire microecology, in the other you are giving some animals an incredible life, and eating part of their waste stream, eggs which are not necessary for their survival or happiness, and in fact are over-budgeted in their genetics to allow for predation. Veganism is an OK heuristic for animal cruelty, but it's far from perfect. It's often better than nothing, but a vegan Whole Foods diet may well cause more animal harm than someone living near the poverty level in, say, Korea, eating some animal products, but also making much more efficient use of land. Vegans love to pretend land use doesn't matter, but land use = animal displacement. Eating more plants can be a great way to reduce cruelty. But Vegan\ism\ as a hard rule is more about religious purity than it is about animal cruelty. Signed, Someone who ate entirely vegan today and most days |
While it might be a fun thought experiment to find situations where a non-vegan dish includes less animal cruelty than a technically vegan dish, for 99.99% the people reading this and in 99.99% of the real world situations they ever be in, choosing the vegan dish will mean choosing significantly less animal cruelty.
A common pro-vegan argument is actually less land use for growing feed crops for raising livestock.