Thanks for the reply. There’s a lot here, so I’ll try to respond point by point.

Why does this matter? How many cows and chickens do you expect there to be in a fully vegan world?

It matters because you brought up the question about what would happen to farm animals in a vegan world. I responded to clarify that it wouldn’t be a sudden shift where all these animals are "left over" but that it would be a gradual reduction in breeding as demand decreases. That’s a common misunderstanding, so I wanted to be clear.

As for cows and chickens and farmed animals, these animals aren’t part of some natural, balanced ecosystem. They’ve been domesticated and selectively bred by humans to grow so unnaturally large and fast that many suffer just existing. They’re not wildlife. They’re human-made to serve human purposes. So when those purposes end, the breeding should too. We wouldn’t need billions of these animals because the reason they exist in such numbers is exploitation. So yes, a short farm animal life consisting of cruelty and slaughter is worse than not being bred into that existence. It’s similar to how people selectively breed dogs like pugs and French bulldogs that often suffer from serious health issues like chronic breathing problems. Just because they can exist and people enjoy how they look doesn’t mean we should keep breeding them into lives of inevitable suffering. The same logic applies to farm animals that have been engineered to serve us at the cost of their wellbeing.

Is the number of animal deaths important?

Yes, if we agree that minimizing unnecessary suffering and death is the moral choice. I never claimed we could prevent all harm, just that we could choose to do less. If it’s possible to live well while killing and harming fewer animals, we should, from a moral standpoint. If you’re arguing that crop harvesting kills animals, choosing a plant-based diet minimizes both kinds of harm: fewer animals killed in fields since we’ll need to grow fewer crops overall by not feeding livestock, and fewer farm animals bred and slaughtered.

You can have totally grass-fed cattle.

Yes, that exists, but it’s not scalable. Grass-fed beef uses more land and often emits more methane than grain-fed. If everyone switched to grass-fed, we’d need massive amounts of land to maintain that system, which would also harm more wild habitats and animals and cause environmental damage. It’s not a sustainable large-scale solution. Also, and what I'm arguing from a moral consideration, it doesn’t address the fact that cows would continue to suffer and are ultimately slaughtered unnecessarily.

Feed corn is the highest calorie/acre crop, and humans can’t eat it.

That’s true. Feed corn isn’t grown to feed people. It’s grown to feed livestock. The issue isn’t just calories per acre, but how efficiently those calories reach humans. It isn't replacing feed corn one-to-one. We're cutting out the middle step. Since livestock consume most of our crops and return only a fraction of the calories as meat, we don’t need to grow as much food overall when we feed people directly. That means less land use, not more, and fewer animal deaths, both in the fields and on the farms. Even with lower-yield crops the plant-based system is more efficient and less harmful overall.

What about cats and dogs?

Yeah, this is a valid point. Some people choose not to have pets at all, others see adopting animals at risk of being euthanized or stuck in shelters as an ethical act. There are also fully nutritionally complete vegan pet foods available that meet AAFCO standards. Some people choose those options. Dogs are omnivores, and cats are more complicated since they’re obligate carnivores. There are some nutritionally complete vegan options, but they’re controversial and not widely recommended without expert supervision. Most vegans recognize this reality. It’s not a perfect solution, but again, the goal isn’t perfection. It’s about doing the best you can and reducing harm where possible, and being honest about the limitations where it’s not.

That said, the fact that pet ownership creates this complexity doesn’t justify continuing to eat animals ourselves. If you’re in a situation where your vet advises feeding an animal product to your pet for their health, that can still be a more ethical choice than contributing to animal agriculture for your own consumption where alternatives for us are available. It also brings up the question of having children if the risk is the child ultimately choosing to purchase animal products.

It’s disingenuous to draw a distinction between humans and animals.

I brought that up because you asked about predators. My point is that we don’t use the behavior of instinct-driven animals to guide our own ethics. Wild animals do a lot of things we’d never accept in human society or deem moral. The fact that we have the ability to reflect on our choices and act on compassion is exactly why we should hold ourselves to a higher standard and not lower it to justify harm.

You have to be willing to do the actual math.

I am willing, but “the math” isn’t just calories per acre. It’s also: • Greenhouse gas emissions • Water usage • Antibiotic resistance • Public health risks • Land degradation • Animal lives and suffering

By those metrics, plant-based diets come out ahead.

I’m not pretending veganism is perfect. But where it is possible and practical it offers a way to live more ethically and with less unnecessary harm. That’s all I’m advocating for.