Vegans Killing Animals

[Rory17]

Hello,
Please don’t give me abuse for this - I am a vegan.
I just read an article about vegans killing “gazillions” of animals like gophers, ground-nesting birds, mice, rats and of course bugs. I also remember hearing a farmer/animal transport worker saying “the biggest place you’ll see death on a farm is in a combine harvester (or something like that).”
I would respond with the argument that the animals whom the meat-eaters eat would often be fed using crops and that they would have to be grown and harvested and that would kill the other critters just like the harvesting of crops for human consumption does. Also, it isn’t just vegans who eat crops, fruits and vegetables; meat-eaters eat them as well as animals, so they are possibly causing double the amount of animal crop deaths to vegans because they eat the animals who ate crops and the crops themselves. Also, isn’t it true that more land is used to feed a non-vegan who eats both plant products and animal products than is used to feed a vegan? That’s more animals being killed during the destruction of their natural habitat and building of the farms and crop fields.
What are your thoughts?

 

[Lou]

Hello,
Please don’t give me abuse for this - I am a vegan.
I just read an article about vegans killing “gazillions” of animals like gophers, ground-nesting birds, mice, rats and of course bugs. I also remember hearing a farmer/animal transport worker saying “the biggest place you’ll see death on a farm is in a combine harvester (or something like that).”
I would respond with the argument that the animals whom the meat-eaters eat would often be fed using crops and that they would have to be grown and harvested and that would kill the other critters just like the harvesting of crops for human consumption does. Also, it isn’t just vegans who eat crops, fruits and vegetables; meat-eaters eat them as well as animals, so they are possibly causing double the amount of animal crop deaths to vegans because they eat the animals who ate crops and the crops themselves. Also, isn’t it true that more land is used to feed a non-vegan who eats both plant products and animal products than is used to feed a vegan? That’s more animals being killed during the destruction of their natural habitat and building of the farms and crop fields.
What are your thoughts?

Yep, you are right.

You should reference the article you read. Always a better thing to do than the something I read or some guy said.

Vegans being responsible for animal deaths is a typical Troll Argument. Your response is excellent.

But also, research has been done to refute some of those premise. I'll see if can find the articles and link them at the bottom. but if my memory serves me right there were two pieces of research. one in the UK and one in the NE of the USA. I can't remember the methodology of one but in the other they radio tagged mice.
and discovered that mice are smart enough to get out of a combines way. (maybe not the baby mice tho).

Althogugh this might be a moot point anyway. A couple of days later all the radio tagged mice had disappeared. Maybe they moved out of range but the researchers thought that they probably got eaten by predators because of lack of cover.

Hm. in googling I found these articles - very interesting. I had not seen them before.
This one is the best

Debunking: Does Cultivation Kill More Animals Than Livestock Farming?

Picture this: You’re a harvest mouse who lives in a wheat field. Being a mouse, you have excellent hearing and can easily pick up sounds that a human cannot hear. Thanks to your sensitive whi…

anupamkatkar.com

The surprisingly complicated math of how many wild animals are killed in agriculture

As ever more people make the ethics of harming animals central to their dietary choices, the number of wild animals killed by farming is an essential piece of information. A precise figure, however, is surprisingly difficult to find.

www.anthropocenemagazine.org

No, Vegans Don’t Kill More Animals than Human Omnivores

So why do gaslighting pundits say otherwise?

medium.com

 

[silva]

This is such a classic retort against veganism. Yes, animals raised for food each exponentially more crops than anyone who eats plant based. Of course that means that much more land, fertilizer, and pesticides are used, which effect more wildlife than any combine.
Another consideration is that plant based eaters have more concern for the environment and look towards more earth and animal friendly ways to raise food, as well as being more available to a population often left in a food desert. vertical gardening, community gardens, hydroponics

 

[Graeme M]

I had some long discussions about that here a little while back. The crop death argument is valid in that growing plant foods can cause many animals to be killed, probably mostly from pest control. People make this argument because too many vegans claim that their diet causes no harm, or as is usually stated, no animal had to die for my food. Of course, that isn't true. Under most commercial crop systems, many small animals as well as larger ones are killed by farmers (for example, a chickpea farmer here in Australia claimed to have killed almost 1,000 feral pigs that year). But those numbers pale into insignificance next to the number of invertebrates that may be killed. I am not aware of any accurate estimates for those numbers but have seen estimates that claim as many as 20,000 or perhaps even 250,000 per hectare in croplands.

Rory17, you are correct that probably more animals are killed to produce animal foods than would be by the plant foods to replace them under current agricultural systems. As you note this is likely due to the fact so much of the world's crops is fed to animals, though I don't know the true figure (for example, some proportion is waste from human purposed crops, some proportion, such as soy, would not be eliminated if we eliminated animals for food and fibre). I think the FAO claims around 40% of all crops grown are used for animal feed but that may be misleading (it is for soy, for example).

In the end though, it's true that a vegan diet for most people buying food from a shop has a very large death toll associated with it, if you care about the killing of invertebrates. It's probably less than that caused by people eating foods bought from shops and which includes animal products though. However, it might be possible to cause less harm, death and suffering by including animals in the diet, so vegans probably should be open to noting that fact.

As best I can tell, and I don't know if I am right to say so, the best response covers three points.

1. Currently, more animals are probably killed to provide animal foods than to provide plant foods.
2. Far less land would be needed for agriculture under a plants only system.
3. Only in animal farming systems are animals owned and exploited.

I think there are valid counters to all three, but broadly speaking I think these are the main vegan points.

 

[VeganRachel]

I find it interesting that humans who casually eat dead animals suddenly care about mice, snakes,
insects, and other small animals when they use this argument. It is an interesting point to bring up since
most of us do not consider the fact that some small animals are killed to produce crops. However,
trying to compare the deliberate breeding, raping, taking away animal babies, slaughter and
consumption of animals--with the death of small animals-- is pure desperation on their part to
excuse and justify eating animals. In addition, lets say 95% of the worlds' humans are omnivores, and
99% of them consume grains and other plant products--the argument of killing mice etcetera should
be directed at them, not vegans!. cheers.

 

[Graeme M]

I find it interesting that humans who casually eat dead animals suddenly care about mice, snakes,
insects, and other small animals when they use this argument.

I don't think it really is due to any sudden outbreak of caring. It's usually one or both of these reasons: to counter the hypocrisy of vegans claiming their diet is less harmful or is somehow free of harm, and also to highlight that there is something a little odd about defending the rights of animals like fish not to be killed for food while disregarding the rights of invertebrates not to be killed for food.

Personally I am not convinced that sentience admits of such fine gradations as some people want to claim. If a locust for example is sentient, I am not sure on what grounds one could argue that a fish or a lobster or a chicken has a greater claim to a right to life. I actually don't think there is very much in the conscious experience of a locust that is much different even from that of a cow. I'm not sure how that could be proved or disproved.

I remain uncertain about why we should worry about cows more than locusts which is why I now believe the problem of exploitation may be the greater problem in terms of ethical veganism, but even here I have my doubts. Cows have no idea they are being exploited!

In the end - at a global scale - I think we remain on safe ground to argue that a vegan diet causes less death and suffering than today's food system.

 

[vegan89]

The real reason people bring up field mice being killed in farm equipment is because they want vegans to shut up so they can go back to enjoying hamburgers or whatever. They want to just say "well animals will suffer no matter what I eat, so therefore it doesn't matter... and it's ethical for me to just eat whatever I want without showing any concern for the suffering my diet causes."

It's not a logical perspective... that's for sure. Because even if it's impossible to eliminate ALL suffering associated with your diet, that doesn't mean there is no ethical responsibility to REDUCE the suffering caused by your diet as much as reasonably possible. (Such as with a vegan diet...).

 

[Graeme M]

Because even if it's impossible to eliminate ALL suffering associated with your diet, that doesn't mean there is no ethical responsibility to REDUCE the suffering caused by your diet as much as reasonably possible. (Such as with a vegan diet...).

Sure. But if the aim is to reduce harm, it follows that eating plant-based foods grown in commercial systems will come with a huge toll in harm. How can a vegan avoid that? Choosing plant-based foods grown in systems that limit such harms. Or, perhaps to eat some animals. On the other hand, veganism may just be the idea one doesn't eat animals and the quantum of harm is somewhat irrelevant.

 

[vegan89]

Sure. But if the aim is to reduce harm, it follows that eating plant-based foods grown in commercial systems will come with a huge toll in harm. How can a vegan avoid that? Choosing plant-based foods grown in systems that limit such harms. Or, perhaps to eat some animals.

I don't see how eating some animals reduces the overall amount of animal suffering. Actually, I think in most cases it would increase the total amount of animal suffering... because animals on factory farms are fed plant crops, and this also results in killing field mice and other rodents in crop harvesting equipment to produce more feed to give to animals on factory farms.

This is also an inefficient system, because from a scientific perspective... it is more energy-efficient and food-efficient for humans to eat plant crops directly rather than feeding the plant crops to cows/pigs/whatever and then eating those animals.

Thus, the total amount of plant crops that need to be grown if humans are eating animals is actually probably larger than the total amount of plant crops that would hypothetically need to be grown to feed an entirely vegan human population. And that means even more field mice getting killed in crop harvesting equipment to produce meat than to produce vegan food.

Therefore, if reducing overall animal suffering is the goal, veganism is a good thing to promote in society.... not only to reduce deaths of field mice... but also to reduce the suffering of animals on factory farms and in slaughterhouses.

 

[Graeme M]

I don't see how eating some animals reduces the overall amount of animal suffering. Actually, I think in most cases it would increase the total amount of animal suffering... because animals on factory farms are fed plant crops, and this also results in killing field mice and other rodents in crop harvesting equipment to produce more feed to give to animals on factory farms.

Not all farmed animals are raised in intensive indoor systems. Nor do they have to be. Vegans tend to point to idealised production systems for food, such as eliminating all animal farming and utilising crops instead. Of course, non-vegans can suggest that we could idealise animal farming systems by ensuring we only raise animals in extensive systems with minimal supplementary feeding. I think it's debateable which would result in least harm. Neither is very likely. I have a farmer friend who runs sheep and cattle on native pasture with limited supplementary feeding. I have calculated that in her case, the food and wool produced leads to less actual death and suffering than replacing her system with a plant based one, IF numbers of invertebrates and other pests killed is around what some estimates suggest. Does that mean we should simply adopt thoughtful animal farming as the better solution? Depends a bit on what we want to achieve.

As I see it, what counts to a vegan is what their own choices lead to. In the case of commercially farmed crops, it means many negative impacts, from reduced biodiversity to excessive use of chemical inputs to the vast scale of insect suffering and death from pest control. That may not worry some because their veganism is simple - don't eat animals. On the other hand, someone genuinely seeking to do least harm might see it as more ethical to eat self-caught fish, oysters, molluscs, perhaps even beef brought directly from a farmer such a my friend.

Still, and as I said earlier, viewed at the global level there is no doubt that replacing the current business as usual system with a plant-based one would much reduce animal harm, suffering and death.

 

[vegan89]

Not all farmed animals are raised in intensive indoor systems. Nor do they have to be.

The overwhelming majority of meat sold in supermarkets in the western world is raised in those types of intensive factory farms.

Vegans tend to point to idealised production systems for food, such as eliminating all animal farming and utilising crops instead. Of course, non-vegans can suggest that we could idealise animal farming systems by ensuring we only raise animals in extensive systems with minimal supplementary feeding. I think it's debateable which would result in least harm.

Yeah... good luck persuading the general public to buy your special beef for $15/lb when the factory-farmed beef is selling for like $2/lb.

Now you might reply "good luck convincing the general public to eat bok choy and tofu instead of beef," but there are actually a lot of popular foods in Asian societies that are pretty much centered around foods like that and they actually taste pretty good when you learn how to prepare them. Veganism can be very good-tasting, relatively humane, and very affordable. Not to mention healthier and better for the environment. Your special beef can't match that list of benefits.

There's another problem with your special beef: the most promising solutions people who are concerned with animal welfare have to stop factory farming are the highly sophisticated commercially-produced animal product substitutes like the Impossible Burger, Beyond Meat, etc. These are things that taste essentially indistinguishable from beef in the context of a fast food burger with the usual toppings (try the Impossible Whopper, for example). But they need customers (and the associated revenue) to develop and improve their technology, scale up their businesses, and bring prices down to the point where their products would be adopted by most of the general public in order to dramatically reduce factory farming.

When you draw people away from such products and companies with your non-solution special beef that probably couldn't ever be scaled up enough to meet the meat demand of society anyway because of its massive increase in land use; you are essentially ensuring the factory farming system's most dangerous competitor never gets the customers and revenue it needs to develop into real competition... which essentially serves to perpetuate the current factory farming system and increase overall animal suffering.

As I see it, what counts to a vegan is what their own choices lead to. In the case of commercially farmed crops, it means many negative impacts, from reduced biodiversity to excessive use of chemical inputs to the vast scale of insect suffering and death from pest control.

I'm inclined to think it's a bit ridiculous to concern yourself with the suffering of insects considering many billions of animals with central nervous systems as sophisticated as cows and pigs are put through the factory farming & animal slaughterhouse system so frequently.

That may not worry some because their veganism is simple - don't eat animals. On the other hand, someone genuinely seeking to do least harm might see it as more ethical to eat self-caught fish, oysters, molluscs, perhaps even beef brought directly from a farmer such a my friend.

I don't really have a problem with hunting/fishing (or at least am not focused on stopping it at the moment), but that's obviously not a practical food solution for the average person and probably could never be scaled up to meet global demand for food or meat anyway.

What reduces animal suffering is finding a food solution that is affordable, scalable, relatively kind to animals, relatively environmentally sustainable, reasonably convenient, and tasty. Impossible Burgers can check all of those boxes if the company grows as much as many think it will and scales up. Hunting/fishing can't do that. Your special beef can't do that either.

Financially supporting a relatively scalable food system that reduces animal suffering (compared with the current system) is more ethical than financially supporting a food system that can never be scaled up to meet global demand in a practical way.

 

[Graeme M]

Yeah... good luck persuading the general public to buy your special beef for $15/lb when the factory-farmed beef is selling for like $2/lb.

Now you might reply "good luck convincing the general public to eat bok choy and tofu instead of beef," but there are actually a lot of popular foods in Asian societies that are pretty much centered around foods like that and they actually taste pretty good when you learn how to prepare them. Veganism can be very good-tasting, relatively humane, and very affordable. Not to mention healthier and better for the environment. Your special beef can't match that list of benefits.

I am not saying that "special beef" is the only option; I am pointing out that it IS possible to eat animals and do less harm than someone eating plants IF your concern is harm (pain, suffering, death). I suspect it is easier to convince people to eat a diet with a small amount of meat than one with no meat.

I'm inclined to think it's a bit ridiculous to concern yourself with the suffering of insects considering many billions of animals with central nervous systems as sophisticated as cows and pigs are put through the factory farming & animal slaughterhouse system so frequently.

OK, can you provide a cogent explanation as to why the experience of a cow is somehow of greater meaning/quality/ethical duty than the experience of a locust? You might say that a cow is smarter, but cognitive prowess is not what it means to experience the world or to be the subject of a life.

And as I mentioned elsewhere, more and more research suggests that many insects may feel pain:

Descending control of nociception in insects? | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Modulation of nociception allows animals to optimize chances of survival by adapting their behaviour in different contexts. In mammals, this is executed by neurons from the brain and is referred to as the descending control of nociception. Whether insects ...

royalsocietypublishing.org

Is their pain less than the cow's?

There's another problem with your special beef: the most promising solutions people who are concerned with animal welfare have to stop factory farming are the highly sophisticated commercially-produced animal product substitutes like the Impossible Burger, Beyond Meat, etc. These are things that taste essentially indistinguishable from beef in the context of a fast food burger with the usual toppings (try the Impossible Whopper, for example). But they need customers (and the associated revenue) to develop and improve their technology, scale up their businesses, and bring prices down to the point where their products would be adopted by most of the general public in order to dramatically reduce factory farming.

Are faux meats really likely to take off?

Lifeless Market For Meatless Meat

The dream of plant-based chicken, pork and beef appears to be withering.

www.forbes.com

For the record, my fridge is full of Beyond Meat patties, Impossible Burger burgers, plant based chicken and so on. But I find that the vast majority of people are not doing the same. Will they ever? Maybe, if these companies can survive long enough to win out. I am sceptical, though I like to imagine that cell-based alternatives may fare better.

 

[Lou]

Are faux meats really likely to take off?

I really do like Forbes, but I only skimmed the article. I didn't read the whole thing because I'm already familiar with the authors take on the situation. IMHO, I think he not right. Faux meats had tremendous growth for a few years and now (even according to the Forbes author) they continue to grow - just not as rapidly.

Anyway, faux meats is just one piece of the puzzle. The non-dairy market is still growing rapidly.

and other things are happening as well. PB interest is being powered by people who want to get healthy and stop climate change too. These might not show up in the faux meat market place - but just as less meat consumption.

Meanwhile I just dug up this

According to MarketsandMarkets, the global plant-based meat market is estimated to be valued at USD 7.9 billion in 2022. It is projected to reach USD 15.7 billion by 2027, with a CAGR of 14.7%, in terms of value between 2022 and 2027. Plant-based food products are gaining widespread popularity. The demand for plant-based meat products is expected to increase in the coming years, owing to the growing health concerns among consumers related to animal-based protein sources, ethical concerns, and environmental concerns. COVID-19 raised questions about animal protein supplies, and during these times plant-based meat played a major role in rebuilding the restaurant industry.​

​

Plant-based Meat Market Size, Share & Growth Trends | Industry Statistics and Forecasts | MarketsandMarkets

The plant-based meat market is projected to reach a value of USD 8.3 billion by 2025. Get Detailed research report on plant based meat market by MarketsandMarkets. An increasing number of consumers are demanding plant-based meat, either for medical reasons or as a healthy lifestyle.

www.marketsandmarkets.com

​

​

 

[vegan89]

I am not saying that "special beef" is the only option; I am pointing out that it IS possible to eat animals and do less harm than someone eating plants IF your concern is harm (pain, suffering, death). I suspect it is easier to convince people to eat a diet with a small amount of meat than one with no meat.

If you have an animal product substitute that is convincing enough to replace the real thing and is priced competitively -- yes -- I think it's possible to convince most "omnivores" to give up meat completely. The trifecta of arguments against meat (health, environment, animal welfare) are pretty strong, the vegan movement is rapidly growing as people learn these arguments, and even if someone doesn't care about one of the arguments (animals, for example)... there is a good chance one of the others (health, environment, for example) will convince them of the importance of this cause.

The remaining omnivores who can't be convinced by any of these arguments could be convinced by social ostracism, shaming, and legal penalties -- after most of the "omnivores" have converted to our side. Such laws might seem unlikely at the moment, but once enough omnivores are on our side, we could have the numbers necessary to enact government policies that would push the most vegan-hating groups on the other side into adopting a vegan lifestyle whether they like it or not.

Keep in mind very few people thought cannabis would be legalized in the United States 20 years ago... and yet here we are. Cannabis is legal at the state level in unexpected places like Michigan. Change can be painfully slow, but it appears more and more are learning about the benefits of veganism and are trying to reduce animal product consumption... even if they are only starting with "Meatless Mondays" or vegetarianism.

(Keep in mind, most of us vegans started out our journey to veganism that way too. Very few vegans decided to become entirely vegan overnight. In most cases, it was a gradual process).

OK, can you provide a cogent explanation as to why the experience of a cow is somehow of greater meaning/quality/ethical duty than the experience of a locust? You might say that a cow is smarter, but cognitive prowess is not what it means to experience the world or to be the subject of a life.

I agree that intelligence is not the metric by which we should judge whether we should be concerned with the suffering of an individual creature. If that were the case, it might be ethical to treat certain mentally disabled humans in a cruel manner (obviously this is unacceptable).

However, given that cows and pigs are much more closely related with humans and have a much more sophisticated central nervous system (something we know to be closely related to our sensation of pain), we have every reason to think prima facie they experience pain just like we do.

With insects, the arguments that they experience pain like humans do are weaker and are debated by researchers in that field. Your own link says so:

Descending control of nociception in insects? | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Modulation of nociception allows animals to optimize chances of survival by adapting their behaviour in different contexts. In mammals, this is executed by neurons from the brain and is referred to as the descending control of nociception. Whether insects ...

royalsocietypublishing.org

Thus, it makes sense to focus our efforts on reducing the suffering of farm animals until insect advocates have more evidence to support their position (or until farm animal suffering has been adequately addressed so we can focus on insects without dectracting from our efforts to reduce the presumably greater suffering of farm animals).

If you want to argue we should err on the side of caution and try to be kind to insects where reasonably possible, I would agree only insofar as this does not detract from our efforts by muddying the waters and arguing meat isn't really all that bad in some cases, and that the average person doesn't really have a good reason to switch to a vegan diet.

Are faux meats really likely to take off? [...]

For the record, my fridge is full of Beyond Meat patties, Impossible Burger burgers, plant based chicken and so on. But I find that the vast majority of people are not doing the same. Will they ever? Maybe, if these companies can survive long enough to win out. I am sceptical, though I like to imagine that cell-based alternatives may fare better.

Society is changing rapidly. The numbers of vegans, vegetarians, etc have increased substantially, and probably will continue to increase as public awareness of the issue increases and companies making animal product substitutes get more customers and scale up their operations. This could happen much faster with changes in government policy (meat taxes, subsidies for Beyond Meat or Impossible Burgers, changes in education curricula to educate the public about the benefits of veganism for health, environment, etc), but it might unfortunately take a long time.

Just look at changes in New York City with all the vegan programs being adopted there like Meatless Mondays, Vegan Thursdays, etc, all thanks to the growing influence of the vegan movement and their great new mayor. He wrote a book btw I look forward to reading soon:

Amazon.com

 

[Graeme M]

However, given that cows and pigs are much more closely related with humans and have a much more sophisticated central nervous system (something we know to be closely related to our sensation of pain), we have every reason to think prima facie they experience pain just like we do.

With insects, the arguments that they experience pain like humans do are weaker and are debated by researchers in that field.

Do insects feel pain? I think there is strong evidence that they do. Given vegan advocates typically argue in favour of offering the benefit of the doubt - as they have done in the past in regard to fish - it seems oddly inconsistent to want to defer to lack of unequivocal evidence in order to defend a view that insects don't feel pain. I think vegan advocates should agree that it is likely some or many insect species do feel pain.

Thus, it makes sense to focus our efforts on reducing the suffering of farm animals until insect advocates have more evidence to support their position (or until farm animal suffering has been adequately addressed so we can focus on insects without dectracting from our efforts to reduce the presumably greater suffering of farm animals).

If you want to argue we should err on the side of caution and try to be kind to insects where reasonably possible, I would agree only insofar as this does not detract from our efforts by muddying the waters and arguing meat isn't really all that bad in some cases, and that the average person doesn't really have a good reason to switch to a vegan diet.

The thing here is that I think it does muddy the waters. Let's assume that we have unequivocal evidence that insects are both subjects of a life (there is something it is like to be an insect) and they feel pain and can suffer. By all the usual vegan arguments, those beings have a right to have their interests endorsed and respected by us.

The muddying issue is simple. If growing crops under typical conditions results in perhaps 20 trillion deaths and some vastly greater level of harm and suffering, why should vegans ignore this, when the far fewer animals directly killed to produce food is seen to be of critical importance?

Of course I agree we really have no good idea of these numbers, I am more asking in relation to the moral question raised by the OP. Vegan89, your argument seems to be that somehow, the simpler brains of insects mean they have lesser experiences than cows and thus attract a lesser moral duty. I asked if you could provide a cogent reason why that is so. What evidence can you offer that the everyday experience of a locust is lesser than the everyday experience of a cow, at least insofar as our moral consideration for them extends?

 

[bEt]

the OP. Vegan89, your argument seems to be that somehow, the simpler brains of insects mean they have lesser experiences than cows and thus attract a lesser moral duty. What evidence can you offer that the everyday experience of a locust is lesser than the everyday experience of a cow, at least insofar as our moral consideration for them extends?

To begin with, this was not the basis of the OP's argument.
We all know insects die in every kind of agriculture.
But, if someone's main concern were for an insect, they would prevent more insect deaths with a vegan diet than with a standard omnivore diet
(as the OP and others have already pointed out)

 

[Graeme M]

To begin with, this was not the basis of the OP's argument.

Assuming you are referring to the text you highlighted, then yes. But I was responding to Vegan89's remark, not the OP.

This is not quite the summary of what veganism is trying to accomplish. A vegan seeks to avoid exploiting
other animals. There are some religious philosophies (like Jianism and Buddhism) that have traditionally focused on not causing undue harm, even to insects, but this is not the same as what veganism is based on, philosophically speaking.

Are you sure you are not misunderstanding what I said? That quote wasn't about reducing harm, it was to observe that IF insects qualify as sentient beings, then by vegan philosophy they should also qualify for moral consideration in the same way that cows and sheep do.

Also, I think you are claiming something about veganism that the standard definition does not claim, and that is that veganism is only about avoiding exploitation of others. The Vegan Society clearly states that veganism is also concerned about preventing cruelty to others. I would have thought causing harm and suffering to others would constitute cruelty. Perhaps you are saying that killing or causing an animal to suffer is neither here nor there providing you are not seeking to exploit it by your actions. So, the hunter who kills a deer for food is exploiting the deer, whereas the farmer baiting mice to protect his crops is not. Thus killing pest animals is morally justifiable, regardless of how it is done.

 

[bEt]

Okay, maybe I should re-read the quote you are referencing:

"Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."

(Quote from vegan society, with emphasis added)
If you would like to focus on insects' lives, a person would prevent more insect deaths (and cruelty) with a vegan diet than with a standard omnivore diet.
Excluding ALL insect death is not possible nor practicable. Excluding our exploitation of animals raised for food is. Reducing the volume of crops we grow to feed animals raised to be eaten is also possible and practicable.

As a side note, I would like to recognize that this conversation is not taking place in a vacuum, in the sense that each of us brings unique circumstances and experiences to the table. I admit that I rely mostly on food grown by others for my sustenance. If I am not mistaken, Graem M. has perhaps (again if I am recalling correctly) stated in other threads that he lives in Australia and has friends who raise animals on pasture. I would guess that people in that line of work enjoy their lifestyle and may care about the wellbeing of their local environment. I recognize that for them, they may say that not having to use as much pesticides on their land, as perhaps a corn farmer raising food for warehoused animals, is a plus. Of course, this does not exclude the possibility that the pasture-raised sheep or other animals are also provided supplemental feed like grains grown on large commercial farms. And except in very rare circumstances, the shepherds or ranchers themselves must rely on bread and other foods that ultimately come from commercial agriculture also. On a certain level, I can appreciate someone's feeling a connection to this way of life. On the other hand, I recognize that this cannot be a reality for most people. The vast majority of us, even pastoral shepherds, rely on food from large farms, and on a global scale, raising food for humans makes more sense than raising food to feed animals who will be killed and fed to humans.

Maybe what I'm trying to say is that veganism can't be perfect, but it is better than the alternatives.

 

[Brian W]

Excluding ALL insect death is not possible nor practicable. Excluding our exploitation of animals raised for food is.

I'm not convinced that everybody can be vegan, especially seeing a video of somebody who was admitted to hospital after becoming vegan because her intestines were bleeding due to severe IBS. Maybe one day it won't be necessary to kill animals but not today.

 

[bEt]

That sounds like an interesting case. I hope she recovered, and figured out exactly what caused the bleeding. Life certainly is complicated.
I'm a person who is likely to question almost everything. If I watch a video, I'm going to question the conclusions that the videographer wants me to come away with.

(I was shocked waiting outside a vet office one day to hear a woman tell me that the moon is fake, and she saw a video online that proves it. She was dead serious.)

So back on topic, sort of-- If her medical team were willing to help explore specific causes and solutions, it may be interesting to see what they could come up with. I'm not sure IBS or even IBD are well understood yet, at least not from what little I've seen written about it. Possibly something about a previous diet and then a switch to a new diet set the stage for a problem? For all I know, the real cause of the problem was planted as a seed long before the diet switch. I say this because in my own life my mom got a cancer when she was in her 30's that was likely caused by something she was exposed to as a toddler. In the case of the IBS, we don't know exactly what those factors were. Did it have something to do with the microbiome? Did it have something to do with a specific ingredient in a specific product? All of the above? I do love a mystery, so thank you for this one to ponder.

All that aside, I guess I should have said it is usually possible, for most of us, to be healthy without flesh or other animal products, since pretty much nothing is "always".