Vegans Kill Animals Too (resources) ~ Your Vegan Fallacy Is

Fallacy

Habitats are disrupted by planting food, and animals are killed during harvest, so vegans kill animals too.

Response

Crop fields do indeed disrupt the habitats of wild animals, and wild animals are also killed when harvesting plants. However, this point makes the case for a plant-based diet and not against it, since many more plants are required to produce a measure of animal flesh for food (often as high as 12:1) than are required to produce an equal measure of plants for food (which is obviously 1:1). Because of this, a plant-based diet causes less suffering and death than one that includes animals.

It is pertinent to note that the idea of perfect veganism is a non-vegan one. Such demands for perfection are imposed by critics of veganism, often as a precursor to lambasting vegans for not measuring up to an externally-imposed standard. That said, the actual and applied ethics of veganism are focused on causing the least possible harm to the fewest number of others. It is also noteworthy that the accidental deaths caused by growing and harvesting plants for food are ethically distinct from the intentional deaths caused by breeding and slaughtering animals for food. This is not to say that vegans are not responsible for the deaths they cause, but rather to point out that these deaths do not violate the vegan ethics stated above.

Issue Responses

Bite Size Vegan:

Vegans Kill Animals! More Than Meat-Eaters?

does a vegan diet lead to more animal deaths than an omnivorous one? is it true that harvesting crops for vegans kills more animals than farming grass-fed beef? it's time for vegans to take a long, hard look at their lifestyles and choose the path that is truly more ethical. let’s take a deeper look at this recurring argument and let the facts speak for themselves

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Do Vegans Kill More Animals Than Meat Eaters? | Bite Size Vegan

Vegans Kill Animals! More Than Meat-Eaters?

Emily Moran Barwick has graciously provided permission to share her work on this site. If you wish to secure like permission of your own project, you can contact her via her website.

Vegan Street:

Vegans kill more animals than meat-eaters!

Ever hear this oft-repeated fallacy? It is based on the faulty reasoning that because small animals are killed in the growing and harvesting of crops, herbivores are responsible for more deaths than omnivores. Actually, if the people making this assertion took even a few minutes to research their claim, they would learn that while all of us create some harm just by living, vegans are inflicting far less damage because most of the cereal crops that are mono-cropped (wheat, corn, soy, etc.) are fed to the animals people consume. It is a very inefficient model and it ends up killing more small field animals (in addition to all the other animals they eat) than anything harvested from a produce farm. ~ Marla Rose

What About All The Mice Killed To Grow Plants?

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What About All The Mice Killed To Grow Plants?

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What About The Millions Of Mice Who Die In The Harvesting Of Plants?

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What About The Millions Of Mice Who Die In The Harvesting Of Plants?

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Marla Rose and John Beske have graciously provided permission to share their work on this site. If you wish to sucure like permission of your own project, you can contact them via the social media links listed on their website.

the vegan scholar:

Do Vegans Kill More Animals Than Meat-Eaters?

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Do Vegans Kill More Animals Than Meat-Eaters?

6 apr 2015

In November last year, popular news and entertainment website IFL Science posted a very controversial article. If you're a member of any online vegan groups, you've probably seen it shared around. Even if you're not - you've probably seen it anyway. It's a very popular article.

Although it was posted many months ago, the article still continues to do the rounds on social media. It'll disappear for a month or two, come back for a week, and disappear again. It seems we vegans can't avoid it. Some people love to share any anti-vegan 'propaganda' they can get their hands on.

Here's the article in question.

It's all quite silly, really, considering the article has been debunked numerous times. Scroll down to the comments section and you'll find a whole lot of well thought-out responses defending the veg* lifestyle and refuting the article's incorrect assumptions and claims.

If you don't want to gravitate over to IFL Science to take a look at what the article's all about, I'll summarise the main ideas here.

According to Mike Archer, the author of the article:

Vegans and vegetarians are responsible for more animal deaths than non-veg* folk
The article is probably applicable only to Australian vegans and vegetarians (since the author is Australian, he focuses on Australian farming practices) Note: I'm also from Australia
Compared with meat production, wheat and grain production kills 25 times more animals per kilo of usable protein
Wheat and grain production causes more environmental damage
The wheat and grain industry is crueller than the meat industry
All of this is caused by native vegetation felling
Most cattle slaughtered in Australia feed solely on pasture
In the grain industry, large numbers of mice are poisoned to combat regular mouse plagues

The main problem with Mike Archer's article is its title. Even if the content of his article was one-hundred percent factually correct, the title still wouldn't work, since the author incorrectly assumes that vegans and vegetarians automatically consume more wheat and grain than meat-eaters do. He assumes that wheat and grain is the main source of protein for vegans and vegetarians. For many of us, this simply isn't true.

But that's not the only problem. There are many more.

I don't want to delve too deeply into the scientific side of this issue on my own. I don't want to try and tackle a problem I don't know enough about. I'm not an expert on farming practices, so I wouldn't want to offer my audience too many of my own opinions on this subject. They may not be factually correct. Instead, I will summarise and expand upon a few other arguments I've found online.

'Isaac', a commenter on IFL Science's website, provides a thorough argument against Mike Archer's claims. Here's a summary of his comment:

Vegans and vegetarians encourage and support the implementation of better farming methods
The food used to raise farm animals could instead be used to feed much of the world's human population
There's no evidence to show that new land has been cultivated in order to serve the growing number of vegans and vegetarians
Vegans will buy their food from sustainable sources as much as possible
Vegans and vegetarians, if possible, will grow their own crops instead of supporting large-scale agriculture

Isaac's points make a lot of sense. As he states, most vegans are environmentalists, and will gladly do their bit to support sustainable farming. Many of us have our own veggie gardens. Many of us try to buy our fruits, vegetables, grains and wheat from local, smaller-scale farms.

'Isit', another commenter on IFL Science's website, further discusses my point about the connection - or lack of - between the content of Mike Archer's article and vegan/vegetarian diets.

Isit successfully sums up their own argument with one sentence: "I planted an apple tree, and ate its fruits. How many mice were killed?"

Are vegans and vegetarians responsible for mouse death on a massive scale?

The answer to Isit's question, of course, is none, so long as all necessary "mouse-safety" precautions are taken (which isn't a difficult task). Through this question, Isit quickly and succinctly debunks at least part of Mike Archer's argument. In general, growing plants - when done properly and carefully - doesn't kill animals. At least not on a significant scale. Non-local, mass production of wheat and grain products isn't the only way to farm plants. There are other options that don't result in death.

On the other hand, meat production as we know it will always result in death. At present, there is no way to get animal meat without slaughtering an animal. To expand on this point, meat production as well know it will also always result in a larger amount of plant and water consumption (since the animals must be sustained for a certain period of time before they can be slaughtered).

So, to answer my opening question: No. Vegans don't kill more animals than meat-eaters, but I suppose most of you knew that already. If anyone ever tries to use IFL Science's article in an attempt to dismiss your veganism, show them this article (or Bite Size Vegan's video on the topic - found here - which is awesome; or Your Vegan Fallacy Is's page all about it - found here). We need to stand up against this rampant spread of misinformation and let the world know just how beneficial veganism really is.

The Vegan Scholar has graciously provided permission to share her work on this site. If you wish to secure like permission of your own project, you can contact her via her website.

Vegan Sidekick:

Animals are killed by harvesting crops

Animals are killed in crop harvesting so vegans kill more animals

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Animals are killed in crop harvesting so vegans kill more animals

To feed animals to the age of slaughter, it requires many times more plants to be harvested than if we just ate plants ourselves. You might argue that we could instead just eat exclusively grass-fed animals who do not require grain, but this is entirely impractical. Firstly, most "grass-fed" animals are not fed 100% grass anyway, and secondly, it's not sustainable at all to try to feed 7 billion people exclusively on grass-fed beef. There isn't the space available for such a thing, and good luck living exclusively off beef and nothing else.

Whilst there will be casualties in crop harvesting, and whilst vegans would prefer it not the be the case - it is the least harmful thing most people can do. Obviously, it would be even less harmful to grow your own crops on your own property and pick them by hand, without spraying, and without using machinery which can run down animals. But most people don't have the space available to do that to feed themselves at all, let alone all year round every year. So out of all practical options available, it is least harmful - and hopefully in future, as people start to have more respect for animals and more accountability for how we treat them, more advances will be made in crop harvesting in ways that minimize casualties.

In Australia, grass-fed beef is more ethical than eating wheat

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In Australia, grass-fed beef is more ethical than eating wheat

First of all, do you live in Australia? Because if you don't then this argument is entirely irrelevant to your situation.

Secondly, hi Australians who are still reading!

Thirdly, the whole argument being made here is that more animals die specifically in wheat harvesting than if you just ate grass-fed beef. The argument ignores the fact that there are other things to eat besides wheat on a plant-based diet. You could indeed not eat any wheat at all if you wanted, there are many people who already do that for whatever reason, health, allergies or indeed ethics. But on top of this, it's pretty ridiculous to suggest that you'd just be eating grass-fed beef and nothing else. Chickens, turkeys, pigs etc are fed on grains, not on grass, so you'd be just eating beef and no other animal products, and you'd not be eating wheat. Nobody does this in reality, so the claim falls flat. You don't need to eat wheat if you really are concerned with the practices. You can eat anything else, it doesn't have to be beef.

Vegan Sidekick has graciously provided permission to share his work on this site. If you wish to secure like permission of your own project, you can contact him via his website.

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau:

What about the insects killed for plant production?

Join me as I address some of the tenuous arguments against vegetarianism. The arguments that try to catch vegans in some kind of state of hypocrisy are particular favorites of mine, such as accusing them of torturing plants or not caring about insects. "Don't do nothing because you can't do everything. Do something. Anything."

Source:

What about the insects killed for plant production?

What about the insects killed for plant production? by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's content has been explicitly marked as "publicly embeddable" by her on SoundCloud and YouTube, and we're grateful to be allowed to include her work on this site.

Richie Fruitbat:

Hey vegans! YOU KILL ANIMALS TOO!!!

Those vegans. When will they ever learn? They think they are so perfect in their sad little bubble of compassion, but I'm telling you. Vegans kill more animals by being vegan than meat eaters do! At least that's what I read. On the internet.

Hey vegans! YOU KILL ANIMALS TOO!!!

Content from Richie Fruitbat has been explicitly marked as "publicly embeddable" for use via YouTube, and we're grateful to be allowed to include that work on this site.

Humor

Vegan Sidekick:

Mice Die In Wheat Production

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Mice Die In Wheat Production

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If You're Interested In Minimizing Deaths

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If You're Interested In Minimizing Deaths

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Vegan Sidekick has graciously provided permission to share his work on this site. If you wish to secure like permission of your own project, you can contact him via his website.