[KSteffensen]

The Wikipedia article describes the various psychological mechanisms people use to avoid thinking about the fact that something they are doing involves something else getting killed. It does not provide arguments for why killing an animal for it's meat (or hide or other resource) is wrong.

A counterpoint to your 'raising humans for consumption' point which is equally extreme but in the opposite direction. How do you know plants do not feel suffering? After all studies show plants can sense surroundings and communicate with other plants even of other species.

[boston_clone]

It is commonly understood that plants do not have the same mechanisms to experience a range of emotions (pain, happiness, sadness, etc.) as fish, birds, and other animals do.

Further, if we want to abstract away from a mechanistic understanding and focus purely on a reduction of suffering, then veganism should be your goal. Most crop production is simply for animal feed. Eliminating animals from our diets would dramatically decrease the amount of plants we destroy.

[KSteffensen]

>It is commonly understood that plants do not have the same mechanisms to experience a range of emotions (pain, happiness, sadness, etc.) as fish, birds, and other animals do.

Isn't this another form of the Meat Paradox, though? Plants have been shown to have moment to moment awareness of their surroundings, can communicate with each other and will turn away from unfavourable conditions. How can you definitively say that plants don't feel pain?

[delecti]

Even if plants feel suffering, fewer plants die from eating them directly than would if we had to pass their calories through an intermediary animal. It's closer to equivalent for chickens, but it's about an order of magnitude for cows.

[KSteffensen]

If you grant that eating a plant causes suffering to that plant I don't see why the order of magnitude of the suffering or number of entities made to suffer matters.

Is it acceptable to inflict suffering on other beings to alleviate your own suffering or hunger?

[delecti]

> I don't see why the order of magnitude of the suffering or number of entities made to suffer matters

I absolutely disagree. Minimizing suffering is good. Less suffering is better than more suffering. The specifics of implementing it are obviously complicated, but if you don't agree that minimizing suffering is a good thing, at least in theory, then I don't know if we have any moral common ground.

> Is it acceptable to inflict suffering on other beings to alleviate your own suffering or hunger?

I assert that I have a right to attempt to continue my existence. Given that, and the above, I think it follows necessarily that it's better to cause less suffering in that pursuit, if possible (and it is).

Also, all of this is only entertaining the possibility that plants can suffer for the purpose of discussion. I think it's entirely obvious that they cannot experience suffering.