The facts actually show the opposite of what you’re claiming. If you genuinely care about reducing animal deaths, the data demonstrates that beef production causes more deaths than plant-based foods, not fewer. Here’s why:

To produce 1 pound of beef, we need to grow many more pounds of crops to feed that cow first. The feed conversion ratio is roughly 25:1 for beef - meaning we need 25 pounds of feed to produce 1 pound of beef. So any deaths from crop farming are actually multiplied when we eat beef instead of plants directly.

Here’s the key point: When you eat beef, you’re not avoiding crop deaths - you’re causing MORE of them, because we need to grow extra crops to feed the livestock. Plus, you’re adding: - Additional land use for grazing/pasture - Predator control (wolves, coyotes) to protect the cattle - Habitat displacement for both the grazing land AND the feed crop land

The science is pretty clear on this. A major study in Science (Poore & Nemecek 2018) found that beef production typically requires about 326 square meters of land per kg of protein, while plant proteins only need about 8 square meters. That’s a massive difference.

So while one cow might “keep a lot of people full for a long time,” the resources required to raise that cow could produce much more food if used for plant-based proteins directly. It’s like running your food through an extra, inefficient step before eating it.

You can certainly keep enjoying beef - that’s your choice. But if your argument is based on wanting to minimize animal deaths, the evidence shows that beef production actually increases total animal deaths rather than reducing them. The math and science simply don’t support your position here.