[ozzyman700]

This is the best reasoning I have seen as to why it is not morally wrong to eat meat. Point 2 specifically. I had not stopped to consider the impact of preparing farming land.

Thank you for your time to write that out.

I still personally feel that in my position in life, it would be unethical for me to consume meat. Seemingly the amount of animals killed by a plant farm would decrease as time goes on yet a slaughterhouse would continue at least linearly in its pace of killing animals. I do admit that in some way I believe that it is " more ethical is to discount the lives of smaller, wild animals in comparison to their larger, meat-producing cousins" and I know that this is an undefendable position.

[hamax]

Most crops are used to feed the animals that are later slaughtered. A tiny amount is directly consumed by humans. So you're not actually reducing the number of animals killed by eating them.