Vegans Kill More Animals - Here's Proof
VIDEO RESOURCES
Click the button below to follow along with my math:
Video Description:
Time Stamps
1. How do animals die in crop production? - 1:57
2. “So does that mean crops fed to livestock put even more blood on meat eaters’ hands?” - 6:39
3. “But how many animals actually die?” - 8:37
4. “There’s no way that’s more than slaughterhouses kill… right?!” - 15:16
5. Converting those numbers to food units - 16:06
6. “But omnivores eat plants, too!” - 22:29
7. Vegans have tried to respond… - 24:40
8. Mike Archer’s research - 27:29
9. “But you meant to kill the cows, so it’s way worse” - 28:47
10. “Okay, fine. It doesn’t really matter how many die, only if they suffer. And
slaughterhouses are torture, ya know!” - 30:26
11. In conclusion... - 32:25
Sources
Part 1: How do animals die in crop production?
Mice Plagues:
1. https://www.nature.com/articles/129755b0
Ocean Dead Zones:
2. https://news.stanford.edu/pr/97/970318vitousek.html
3. http://www.mdsg.umd.edu/news/dead-zones-take-heavy-toll-bottom-dwelling-organisms
4. https://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/index.html
SEE BLOG POST WHERE MORE SOURCES ARE CITED: https://farmingtruth.weebly.com/dead-zones.html
Deaths From Habitat Disruption:
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2984095/
6. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320797000827
7.https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alison_Power2/publication/45387120_Agricultural_Intensification_and_Ecosystem_Properties/links/543fcb680cf2be1758cfd63c/Agricultural-Intensification-and-Ecosystem-Properties.pdf
SEE BLOG POST WHERE MORE SOURCES ARE CITED: https://farmingtruth.weebly.com/blog/introduction-ways-that-animals-are-killed-in-crop-production
Part 2: So does that mean crops fed to livestock put even more blood on meat eaters’ hands?
Farm Animal Grain Consumption:
8. https://academic.oup.com/tas/article/2/4/439/5050230
SEE BLOG POST WHERE MORE SOURCES ARE CITED: https://farmingtruth.weebly.com/what-livestock-animals-eat.html
Part 3: But how many animals actually die?
The Davis Study:
9. Edge, W. D., “Wildlife of Agriculture, Pastures, and Mixed Environs,” in D. H. Johnson and
T. A. O’Neill (eds.) Wildlife-Habitat Relationships in Oregon and Washington (Oregon
State University Press, Corvallis, OR, 2000), pp. 342–360. (I could not find an online version)
10. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/000632079390060E
11. Nass, R. D., G. A. Hood, and G. D. Lindsey, “Fate of Polynesian Rats in Hawaiian Sugar Cane Fields During Harvest,” J. Wildlife Management 35(1971), 353–356. (I could not find an online version)
12.https://fewd.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/inst_ethik_wiss_dialog/Davis__S._2003_The_least_Harm_-_Anti_Veg_in_J._Agric._Ethics.pdf
My Calculations of Deaths In The Crop Field:
13. http://reducing-suffering.org/how-many-wild-animals-are-there/#Biomass_estimates
14. http://www.fao.org/3/y4252e/y4252e06.htm
15. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/ioc-oceans/focus-areas/rio-20-ocean/blueprint-for-the-future-we-want/marine-pollution/facts-and-figures-on-marine-pollution/
See blog post where more sources are cited: https://farmingtruth.weebly.com/blog/how-many-die-for-your-food-calculating-the-death-toll-of-crop-production-vs-livestock-production
Part 4: There’s no way that’s more than slaughterhouses kill… right?!
How Many Livestock Are Slaughtered:
16. https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/rx913p88g/k643bc06g/6h441448c/lstk0719.pdf
17. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/psla1018.pdf
Crop Statistics:
(NOTE: because these are hard, “common knowledge” numbers easily discoverable on Google, there is not a source for every number put into the equation)
18. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2018/01_12_2018.php
19. https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/usda/yellow-sweet-corn?portionid=48744&portionamount=1.000
20. https://www.rayglen.com/crop-bushel-weights/
Watch Video That Debunks Cowspiracy: https://youtu.be/N_iRcz3UzAk
Part 6: But Omnivores Eat Plants, Too!
Food Pyramid: 21. https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2000/document/build.htm
Part 7: Vegans Have Tried To Respond
Matheny: 22.https://fewd.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/inst_ethik_wiss_dialog/Matheny__G._2003_Defense_of_Veg__in_J._Agric_Ethics.pdf
Lamey: 23. http://andylamey.com/download/10/
Middleton: 24. http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc
Watch Video About Dairy Practices: https://youtu.be/BP71OCeDUtE
Part 8: Mike Archer’s Research
Read His Study: 25. https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-technology/vegetarian-dilemma
Part 9: But you meant to kill the cows, so it's way worse.
Subjective discussion of moral-based philosophies—no external research cited.
Part 10: Accounting Suffering Into the Least Harm Principle
See blog post where more sources are cited: https://farmingtruth.weebly.com/blog/the-slaughter-process-stunning
Acknowledgements
Music Source: Purple Planet Music
Song: Enterprise- https://www.purple-planet.com/enterprise
Time Stamps
1. How do animals die in crop production? - 1:57
2. “So does that mean crops fed to livestock put even more blood on meat eaters’ hands?” - 6:39
3. “But how many animals actually die?” - 8:37
4. “There’s no way that’s more than slaughterhouses kill… right?!” - 15:16
5. Converting those numbers to food units - 16:06
6. “But omnivores eat plants, too!” - 22:29
7. Vegans have tried to respond… - 24:40
8. Mike Archer’s research - 27:29
9. “But you meant to kill the cows, so it’s way worse” - 28:47
10. “Okay, fine. It doesn’t really matter how many die, only if they suffer. And
slaughterhouses are torture, ya know!” - 30:26
11. In conclusion... - 32:25
Sources
Part 1: How do animals die in crop production?
Mice Plagues:
1. https://www.nature.com/articles/129755b0
Ocean Dead Zones:
2. https://news.stanford.edu/pr/97/970318vitousek.html
3. http://www.mdsg.umd.edu/news/dead-zones-take-heavy-toll-bottom-dwelling-organisms
4. https://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/index.html
SEE BLOG POST WHERE MORE SOURCES ARE CITED: https://farmingtruth.weebly.com/dead-zones.html
Deaths From Habitat Disruption:
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2984095/
6. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320797000827
7.https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alison_Power2/publication/45387120_Agricultural_Intensification_and_Ecosystem_Properties/links/543fcb680cf2be1758cfd63c/Agricultural-Intensification-and-Ecosystem-Properties.pdf
SEE BLOG POST WHERE MORE SOURCES ARE CITED: https://farmingtruth.weebly.com/blog/introduction-ways-that-animals-are-killed-in-crop-production
Part 2: So does that mean crops fed to livestock put even more blood on meat eaters’ hands?
Farm Animal Grain Consumption:
8. https://academic.oup.com/tas/article/2/4/439/5050230
SEE BLOG POST WHERE MORE SOURCES ARE CITED: https://farmingtruth.weebly.com/what-livestock-animals-eat.html
Part 3: But how many animals actually die?
The Davis Study:
9. Edge, W. D., “Wildlife of Agriculture, Pastures, and Mixed Environs,” in D. H. Johnson and
T. A. O’Neill (eds.) Wildlife-Habitat Relationships in Oregon and Washington (Oregon
State University Press, Corvallis, OR, 2000), pp. 342–360. (I could not find an online version)
10. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/000632079390060E
11. Nass, R. D., G. A. Hood, and G. D. Lindsey, “Fate of Polynesian Rats in Hawaiian Sugar Cane Fields During Harvest,” J. Wildlife Management 35(1971), 353–356. (I could not find an online version)
12.https://fewd.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/inst_ethik_wiss_dialog/Davis__S._2003_The_least_Harm_-_Anti_Veg_in_J._Agric._Ethics.pdf
My Calculations of Deaths In The Crop Field:
13. http://reducing-suffering.org/how-many-wild-animals-are-there/#Biomass_estimates
14. http://www.fao.org/3/y4252e/y4252e06.htm
15. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/ioc-oceans/focus-areas/rio-20-ocean/blueprint-for-the-future-we-want/marine-pollution/facts-and-figures-on-marine-pollution/
See blog post where more sources are cited: https://farmingtruth.weebly.com/blog/how-many-die-for-your-food-calculating-the-death-toll-of-crop-production-vs-livestock-production
Part 4: There’s no way that’s more than slaughterhouses kill… right?!
How Many Livestock Are Slaughtered:
16. https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/rx913p88g/k643bc06g/6h441448c/lstk0719.pdf
17. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/psla1018.pdf
Crop Statistics:
(NOTE: because these are hard, “common knowledge” numbers easily discoverable on Google, there is not a source for every number put into the equation)
18. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2018/01_12_2018.php
19. https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/usda/yellow-sweet-corn?portionid=48744&portionamount=1.000
20. https://www.rayglen.com/crop-bushel-weights/
Watch Video That Debunks Cowspiracy: https://youtu.be/N_iRcz3UzAk
Part 6: But Omnivores Eat Plants, Too!
Food Pyramid: 21. https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2000/document/build.htm
Part 7: Vegans Have Tried To Respond
Matheny: 22.https://fewd.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/inst_ethik_wiss_dialog/Matheny__G._2003_Defense_of_Veg__in_J._Agric_Ethics.pdf
Lamey: 23. http://andylamey.com/download/10/
Middleton: 24. http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc
Watch Video About Dairy Practices: https://youtu.be/BP71OCeDUtE
Part 8: Mike Archer’s Research
Read His Study: 25. https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-technology/vegetarian-dilemma
Part 9: But you meant to kill the cows, so it's way worse.
Subjective discussion of moral-based philosophies—no external research cited.
Part 10: Accounting Suffering Into the Least Harm Principle
See blog post where more sources are cited: https://farmingtruth.weebly.com/blog/the-slaughter-process-stunning
Acknowledgements
Music Source: Purple Planet Music
Song: Enterprise- https://www.purple-planet.com/enterprise
Narration Script
The core of the vegan movement is “compassion”—the majority of those that buy plant-based do so on the grounds of ethics. They believe that their lifestyles cause “no harm” and preach that no animals should have to die for people to live.
This is a lie. And I’m here with the science to prove it.
But I don’t want you to just take my word for this information. As always, all sources are linked in the description. So FACT CHECK me!
I apologize in advance. This is going to be a long video because there’s a LOT of literature on the issue.
Here’s a breakdown of what I’ll discuss:
1. How do animals die in crop production?
2. “So does that mean crops fed to livestock put even more blood on meat eaters’ hands?”
3. “But how many animals actually die?”
4. “There’s no way that’s more than slaughterhouses kill… right?!”
5. Converting those numbers to food units
6. “But omnivores eat plants, too!”
7. Vegans have tried to respond…
8. Mike Archer’s research
9. “But you meant to kill the cows, so it’s way worse”
10. “Okay, fine. It doesn’t really matter how many die, only if they suffer. And
slaughterhouses are torture, ya know!”
11. In conclusion...
Time stamps are also in the description if you’re looking for one part in particular.
It’s important to mention that I am NOT saying do not eat crops. This video will expose a lot of the uglies in the jobs of very good people who work tirelessly to put food on your table. I am not attacking them!
The purpose of this video is merely to explain that animals die for your diet regardless of the labels you put on it. None of us are free of blame!
Part 1: How do animals die in crop production?
Here are the most common methods of killing in crop productionFirst and most obviously, there’s direct physical contactHeavy tractors cave in the homes of animals that live underground (such as burrowing owls, rabbits, or gophers), suffocating them. Sharp plows spear snakes, mice, and armadillos that don’t have the ability to run away fast enough. Animals that feed on the crops or neighboring fields, such as deer and bison, often ingest high-enough amounts of pesticides to be poisoned.
Population decline of all of these animals remove hunting options for predators such as coyotes, wolves, hawks, mountain lions, or bobcats. We’ll get into the bulk of the science about this in a few minutes.
There’s also huntingCrop producers will hunt large herbivores including deer, bison, and wild pigs that will destroy their harvests, cutting into their profits.
Yes, livestock raisers have a need to deter predators to protect their commodities, too. Hunting sometimes may play a role in that, but the preferred and much more effective method is incorporating livestock guardian animals into the herd such as sheep dogs, donkeys, or llamas.
And we can’t discuss this topic without mentioning mice plaguesSpring is mice breeding season in Australia, causing crop growers to see uncontrollable population booms. Calling for a radical solution termed the “mice plague,” farmers sink oil drums into the ground, then drive the mice into the traps. Farmers will then kill the gathered pests with poison.
They catch so many mice that they can barely estimate the number of mice killed; they measure catches instead by tons of weight!
I just want to detour for half a second to share some science about this point. One study says, "At Lascelles, three tons, approximately 200,000 mice, were caught in one night. The recorded total caught was 544 tons, at least 32,000,000 mice."
Yes, that's an old study.
We'll look at some contemporary research about the death toll of mice plagues in today's farms in a few minutes.
Spoiler alert: the death toll has risen since 1932.
A fourth way is Ocean Dead ZonesThis method kills millions of bottom-dwelling sea animals every growing season.
Here’s a quick run-down of what happens:
Farmer’s disperse nitrogen-containing fertilizers onto their fields. The crops are not efficient enough at soaking up the nutrients, so the nutrients flush away in the groundwater during irrigation or a rain shower. The nitrogen makes its way into rivers and streams, eventually being transported to oceans. These nutrients feed the cyanobacteria (which are microscopic algae), causing them to rapidly reproduce, using up all of the water’s oxygen. No oxygen is leftover for bottom-dwelling sea life, so they are suffocated. Sometimes millions will die within only miles of the coast.
Oh, but did you know that using livestock manure as fertilizer prevents this? That’s a story for another day, though…
Researchers have extensively tracked the impact of habitat disruption on wildlife populations.
Interdisciplinary Toxicology reported: "Pesticides are found as common contaminants in soil, air, water and on non-target organisms. Once there, they can harm plants and animals ranging from beneficial soil microorganisms and insects, non-target plants, fish, birds, and other wildlife."
And from NW Sotherton: "Declines in the distribution and abundance of many wildlife groups associated with agricultural ecosystems have been documented across Europe. The increasing body of evidence suggests that the processes of intensification of production have been responsible for many of these losses."
Science Magazine said: “Intensification of agriculture by use of high-yielding crop varieties, fertilization, irrigation, and pesticides has contributed substantially to the tremendous increases in food production over the past 50 years. Land conversion and intensification, however, also alter the biotic interactions and patterns of resource availability in ecosystems.”
And last but not least, Ecology and Evolution found that, "Declines in bird populations in agricultural regions of North America and Europe have been attributed to agricultural industrialization, increases in use of agrochemical application, and increased predation related to habitat modification."
Part 2: So does that mean crops fed to livestock put even more blood on meat eaters’ hands?
Vegan Myth: Crops grown to feed livestock would be better off being made available to the world’s hungry.
Farming Truth: It’s very rare, in the big picture of agriculture, for crops to be grown for no other purpose than farm animal supplementation. Over 90% of livestock grain ingredients are byproducts of the processing that turn crops into food made available to human consumers.
These byproducts are not edible by humans but would be created even if there were no livestock. This means livestock have the ability to make usable calories out of byproducts that would otherwise be waste.
Farm animals are not stealing our food. They’re making it go farther.
For example, soybean meal is a byproduct of the extraction of soybean oil. Although humans can’t eat soybean meal, it represents 2/3 of the protein in livestock grain around the world.
Other examples of livestock grain ingredients that would be produced if the whole world was vegan, but humans can’t receive viable nutrition from or would be poisoned by, include cottonseed, cottonseed oil, cottonseed meal, okara, wheat and rye seeds (after separated from the actual bran), screenings, and molasses.
A 2018 study from Translational Animal Science found, “that each individual beef sector and the entire value chain produce more high-quality, human-edible protein than is consumed in production. Accordingly, beef is a net contributor to meeting human protein requirements.”
There is a lot of confusion about how feed-to-gain ratios and the ever-heated corn debate complicate this issue, so stay tuned for a video that goes into a lot more details about this. If you’re hankering for more information this very second, check out some blog posts that cite many valuable sources in the description.
Part 3: But how many animals actually die?
Good question, and you’re not the first to ask.
About 15 years ago, a guy who was slightly out of touch with agriculture and way out of touch with critical thinking decided to write the first scholarly article on the topic in what has since become known as The Davis Study.
I broke down all of his mistakes in a very lengthy blog post linked in the description, but here are the parts we’re most interested in:
Davis referenced external research that is, for the most part, sound.We’ll still challenge its integrity later in the video, but here’s the numbers we need to know:
Again, these are Davis’s numbers, and I’m sure you’re already catching on to many of the cracks in his thinking.
So let’s do our own calculations.These numbers that Davis uses to calculate field deaths in crop production only tell a tiny fraction of the story. I’m about to throw a lot of numbers around, but I would love for you to follow along with my math. I have a link to a resources blog post in the description of this video that has my Excel document that I used for all of these calculations. It also has sources for any figures that were not easily discoverable on Google. Feel free to pause this video and go download that before proceeding, if you would like!
So how many animals are there, in total?Davis’ population density of 25 animals/hectare only describes the mice living in the field, but there are hundreds of other species that inhabit those lands.
We’re only interested in mammals, birds, and reptiles that would have any possibility of being located on croplands. Reducing Suffering had a good estimate of there being 1 trillion mammals, 2.5 trillion birds, and 10 trillion reptiles inhabiting the whole earth.
For these calculations I’m going to assume that these animals are distributed evenly across the whole world, but that’s actually not fair because wildlife populations will obviously be greater in fertile farmlands than in desserts or on ice sheets. But, for ease- let’s take an even 11% of those numbers- this is the percentage of the earth’s land that houses crops, then divide that by the number of hectares contained in that 11%, which is 13.4 billion hectares (this is on all of earth—Davis’ 120 million hectare was only for the United States), to get a unit that relates to Davis’ numbers.
Now we get an average of 8 mammals, 21 birds, and 82 reptiles that are inhabiting one hectare of farmland, for a total of 111 animals at risk in one hectare of crop land.
And how many of those animals are actually killed?Davis correctly identifies all field activities (plowing, disking, harrowing, planting, cultivating, chemical applications, and harvesting, and let’s not forget that many of these are done two or three times per harvest), but then he references the mortality rate just for harvesting (which is only one field activity), and uses that mortality rate for his calculations, completely forgetting that the other field activities will contribute to additional deaths.
A low-ball assumption would be that each field activity besides harvesting (which is understandably the most extreme mortality contributor) kills 5% of the wildlife population, times an average of six field activities means farmers' actions external to harvesting kill 30% of the wildlife population, and harvesting alone kills 60%, for a total of 90% mortality of wildlife populations in a crop field.
90% may sound extreme, but it actually falls short of the situations Davis referenced. For example, an Oregon farmer observed that all of the small mammals, ground birds, and reptiles were killed when he harvested his crops.
So, if 90% of 111 animals (111 being pulled from the previous table) living in one hectare of cropland is killed, that means 100 animals will die on one hectare of crops that’s planted, grown, and harvested.
And Then There’s Ocean Dead ZonesAnimal deaths caused by crop production can be found far outside of crop fields. According to that same Reducing Suffering source, there are 100 trillion animals in all 6.38 billion hectare of ocean. Ocean dead zones impact about 24 million hectares of ocean, so, when we multiply that fraction by 100 trillion, we find that 376.152 billion sea animals are at risk in these coastal waters. Again, this is an unfair estimate because coasts are kind of like the farmlands of the ocean where the water is nutrient rich, meaning that these areas will have a higher population density than deeper regions. However, we’re using the even distribution assumption for simplicity’s sake.
Divide that number by the 13.4 billion hectare of cropland that the fertilizer that causes this phenomenon originates from, and we identify 28 marine animals at risk per hectare of cropland farmed.
Let’s say half of the animals in hypoxic zones die, which, if you go and review the literature linked in the description, seems, tragically, to be far below the actual carnage rate. This gives us 14 deaths added on to the 100 wildlife animals that perished in the crop field directly.
100 + 14 = 114 deaths per hectare of cropland farmed
Part 4: There’s no way that’s more than slaughterhouses kill… right?!
America is a great example of a livestock-heavy agricultural system, so let’s use that kill count:
About 10.76 trillion animals are being slaughtered annually in the US. There are 582.115 million acres (236 million ha) of pastureland that house the livestock in the US. 10.76 billion animals killed divided by 236 million ha of pastureland means that 45.6 animals are slaughtered per ha of pastureland.
To reiterate, 114 animals die per hectare in crop production, while only 46 die per hectare in meat production.
Part 5: Converting those numbers to food units
Obviously, we don’t eat food by the hectare it’s produced on. We eat it in terms of calories and servings. Athletes are especially concerned about protein, so let’s use grams of protein as a unit, too. Time to convert! Sources for any of these numbers that were not easily discoverable on Google are cited in the Excel document. Luckily, these statistics are harder and less ambiguous.
We’ll start by taking into account 6 different animal productsFirst, CaloriesWe see that, on average, one animal slaughtered yields 621.67 pounds of food. If there are an average of 848 calories in one pound of an animal product, than we get an average of 344.5 thousand calories from the death of only one animal. Let’s take the inverse of that and multiply it by 100,000 calories to get a meaningful number, and we learn that 4.17 animals die in livestock production for every 100,000 calories produced.
For protein…Animal products average 92.5 grams of protein per pound of food, showing us that we get an average of over 31.4 thousand grams of protein for every animal we process. Inverse and multiply by 10,000 (it will make more since why I’m changing the number this way in a minute), and we identify an average of 3.68 animals that die per 10,000 grams of animal protein we produce.
And for servings…There is an average of 5.12 servings per pound of these animal products produced. That gives us a little over 2,200 servings of animal-based food for each animal that has to die, resulting in 8.31 deaths for every 1,000 animal servings produced.
Now, let’s look at cropsI chose these seven plant-based products: corn, potatoes, lentils, kale, soybean, wheat, and beans, because corn, potatoes, and wheat are diet staples, and the other options are relied on by vegans for their nutritional content, especially in regards to protein, which will make these calculations generous to plant-based activists.
Again, to start with calories…These plant products provide an average of 593 calories per pound of food, giving us an average of over 1.4 million calories per hectare of crop field. We’ll divide the number of deaths that result from the cultivation of that hectare by this amount of calories, then multiply it, just like when we did animal products, by 100,000 calories to get an intelligible number.
This shows us that an average of 12.34 animals have to die to produce 100,000 calories of plant-based products. This is in comparison to only 4.17 deaths from the production of animal products. At long last, these numbers are starting to take shape, and the results are surprising!
And now for protein…One pound of these plant products produces an average of 45.1 grams of protein, resulting in a yield of almost 86.5 thousand grams of plant protein per hectare. Divide the 114 deaths by this number of grams and multiply it by the same number that we did for animal proteins, 10,000, and we see that 18.04 animals die in the production of 10,000 grams of plant-based protein.
This is in comparison to only 3.68 deaths for 10,000 grams of animal-based protein. Whoa.
Finally, we look again at servings…There is an average of 5.3 servings in one pound of these plant foods, resulting in a yield of over 14.3 thousand servings of crops per hectare cultivated. Divide 114 deaths by this number of servings and multiply the product by the same amount we did for animal servings, 1,000, and we learn that 18.35 animals die to produce 1,000 servings of plant-based food.
This is in comparison to only 8.31 deaths for 1,000 servings of animal-based foods.
Let’s Put All of This TogetherGee! That’s a lot of numbers. Now I have consolidated them to this table to really get the full impact of what this all means.
If you take nothing else away from this video, please hear this:
Plant products kill 2.96 times more animals per calorie, 4.9 times more per gram of protein, and 2.21 times more per serving than animal products. Plant foods are over twice as deadly as animal foods.
A worthy note before moving on is the scale that I had to multiply these figures to get whole numbers of deaths. 100,000 calories?! It takes the average person seven weeks to consume that much food!
And I’m not trying to suggest that there are so few deaths that it’s insignificant. I agree that a single life lost is too many. I will stand right beside vegans in the assertion that we should try to minimize the death toll. However, I will not condone their diet as a method to achieve those minimums. That’s just not what the data shows.
Furthermore, I think that the vegan movement has been really irresponsible in suggesting that, when you eat a hamburger, you’re eating a cow. You’re actually eating only 1 out of the 750 pounds that that animal’s death, which I agree is unfortunate, contributed to our food supply. Another way to think about this issue in real-world terms is that one livestock animal can provide the main course to hundreds of meals while plant foods are just or one ingredient that has to be accompanied by at least five or six others to create a single meal.
Side note: you may be looking at these graphs and noticing that we get much more food, in terms of servings, protein, and calories, on land that grows plants instead of land that grows animals. That is a great observation and leads us to a very important question: why, then, don’t we make all farmland crop fields to maximize our food supply. That question is addressed in my video, “A Complete Debunk of Every Cowspiracy Statistic.” Moving along…
Part 6: But Omnivores Eat Plants, Too!
It’s one thing to say that we kill this many animals with plant production versus this many animals with livestock production, but it’s important to acknowledge that plant products are vital components of our diet and we have no choice but to support the killing in crop fields. For this reason, we must do this comparison of a diet consisting of both plant and animal products versus a diet of only crops.
It’s true that omnivores have the blood of slaughterhouses and crop production on their hands. So does that mean they automatically kill more than vegans? Let’s go a little deeper into the numbers…
The starting place of how much food we eat in a day is (or at least should be) servingsTo figure out how many plant versus animal servings we should be eating in a day, let’s look at this good ole fashion food pyramid. Now I know, MyPlate is king of the jungle now, but this is merely a visual representation and doesn’t give us solid numbers we can work with like this figure does.
According to this pyramid, an omnivore realistically eats 15 plant servings for every 5 animal servings, which simplifies into a plants to animals proportion of 3 to 1, while vegans will eat the same amount of food, only all as plant servings, giving us a proportion of 4 to 0. Now we multiply these numbers by the servings proportion from part 5, where we found that crop production kills 2.21 times more animals than livestock production does per serving.
Remember that the 2.21 is amplified by 1,000 servings, so this is not saying that these numbers are indicative of how many animals we actually kill in a day- it’s only a proportion. These numbers work together to show us that omnivores cause a proportion of 7.63 deaths for every 8.84 deaths a vegan causes in a day of eating. Simplified, this means that a vegan kills 1.16 times more animals in a day of eating than an omnivore. It may sound small, but let’s remember this is the lowest end of the spectrum because the proportion for servings was lower than those for calories and protein.
Part 7: Vegans Have Tried To Respond
Davis’ research sparked heated reactions from plant-based advocates, and this video would not be complete without acknowledging them. Unfortunately, their criticisms are more flawed than Davis’ report.
Like everything else in this video, this is a synthesized version of a much longer blog post that details their entire articles. Check that out in the description, if you’re skeptical. But, in a nutshell, here are these vegans’ main mistakes:
Matheny’s Response
Lamey’s Response
Middleton's Response
Part 8: Mike Archer’s Research
Mike Archer, a professor at UNSW in Sydney, Australia, wrote his own thoughts on the issue. Here is what he said:
“In Australia, producing wheat and other grains results in at least 25 times more sentient animals being killed per kilogram of useable protein, more environmental damage, and a great deal more animal cruelty than does farming red meat.”
Finally! A researcher that has a clue!
To be fair, this is the worst-case scenario model because he’s comparing the atrocious mice plagues I discussed in part one to grass-fed beef. But it’s one that really happens and he gives some great insight into both production systems.
Hats off to this guy! Here are some other shining points of his discussion:
Part 9: "But you meant to kill the cows, so that’s way worse."
This argument, called the morality of intent, is quite insane. Basically, vegans have tried to counter that it doesn’t matter how many animals die, only whether or not we intended for them to die.
They say, “Because we’re not purposely murdering the animals in the crop fields, their deaths don’t count.”
In my personal opinion, that actually makes it worse. At least the livestock deaths mean something. In a philosophical way, those animals continue to exist because their energy is sustaining our lives. But, in the crop field, the farmers are not even aware of most of the carnage they cause.
When consumers go to the grocery store, they walk by the meat aisle and associate the meat with the animals that were sacrificed to produce it. Shoot, there might even be a picture of a cow on the package. But people don’t walk through the produce section and see a poisoned mouse by the carrots or severed snake near the potatoes. I would argue that livestock deaths at least get the respect of acknowledgement.
The animals don’t know if we mean to kill them or not. It makes them no difference. The baby mouse doesn’t say, “Oh, I can’t be sad that my mom’s not here to feed me because the farmer didn’t mean to crush her.” That’s absurd! The infant just lays there, suffering, until it dies of hunger.
For the first time, I’m with Davis on this issue: a death is a death, and both types of killings occur because of human intervention. If it weren’t for farming, the animals would not have died.
Part 10: Factoring Suffering Into the Least Harm Principle
At this point, vegans might try saying, "Okay, fine. It doesn’t really matter how many die, only if they suffer. And slaughterhouses are torture, ya know!"
Up to this point, I’ve only been discussing the concept of least harm in terms of number of deaths.
However, many would argue that what matters more than how many animals have to be killed is either how good those animals’ lives are up until their deaths or how unpleasant their deaths are.
In a slaughterhouse, animals are rendered unconscious before any bodily harm happens. Mike Archer had some more great insight on this issue:
“When cattle, kangaroos and other meat animals are harvested they are killed instantly. Mice die a slow and very painful death from poisons. From a welfare point of view, these methods are among the least acceptable modes of killing.”
I hope to have a future video about exactly how effective stunning is at preventing pain and what animals that go through slaughterhouses really experience, but, for the purpose of this conversation, let’s compare the basic fact that they are stunned to the realities of crop farming:
The bunnies and groundhogs don’t have the luxury of being stunned. Their death is not instantaneous. Poisoning from pesticides or the toxins used in mice plagues often take days of suffering before the animal finally loses sensibility. A snake or squirrel speared by a plow may have to endure hours of excruciating pain before they bleed out.
Because it’s okay to not trust me or some guy at a college you’ve never heard of, there is a blog post linked in the description that details each method of slaughter and its welfare implications. And… you guessed it, it has tons of further reading for you to fact check the day away. Again, stay tuned for a video version of that.
Part 11: In Conclusion
So, let's recap:
Thank you so much for watching! Again, I know that this video was ridiculously long, so I really appreciate your time.
If you have any questions, comment on this video or shoot me an email at [email protected].
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Until next time… good bye!
The core of the vegan movement is “compassion”—the majority of those that buy plant-based do so on the grounds of ethics. They believe that their lifestyles cause “no harm” and preach that no animals should have to die for people to live.
This is a lie. And I’m here with the science to prove it.
But I don’t want you to just take my word for this information. As always, all sources are linked in the description. So FACT CHECK me!
I apologize in advance. This is going to be a long video because there’s a LOT of literature on the issue.
Here’s a breakdown of what I’ll discuss:
1. How do animals die in crop production?
2. “So does that mean crops fed to livestock put even more blood on meat eaters’ hands?”
3. “But how many animals actually die?”
4. “There’s no way that’s more than slaughterhouses kill… right?!”
5. Converting those numbers to food units
6. “But omnivores eat plants, too!”
7. Vegans have tried to respond…
8. Mike Archer’s research
9. “But you meant to kill the cows, so it’s way worse”
10. “Okay, fine. It doesn’t really matter how many die, only if they suffer. And
slaughterhouses are torture, ya know!”
11. In conclusion...
Time stamps are also in the description if you’re looking for one part in particular.
It’s important to mention that I am NOT saying do not eat crops. This video will expose a lot of the uglies in the jobs of very good people who work tirelessly to put food on your table. I am not attacking them!
The purpose of this video is merely to explain that animals die for your diet regardless of the labels you put on it. None of us are free of blame!
Part 1: How do animals die in crop production?
Here are the most common methods of killing in crop productionFirst and most obviously, there’s direct physical contactHeavy tractors cave in the homes of animals that live underground (such as burrowing owls, rabbits, or gophers), suffocating them. Sharp plows spear snakes, mice, and armadillos that don’t have the ability to run away fast enough. Animals that feed on the crops or neighboring fields, such as deer and bison, often ingest high-enough amounts of pesticides to be poisoned.
Population decline of all of these animals remove hunting options for predators such as coyotes, wolves, hawks, mountain lions, or bobcats. We’ll get into the bulk of the science about this in a few minutes.
There’s also huntingCrop producers will hunt large herbivores including deer, bison, and wild pigs that will destroy their harvests, cutting into their profits.
Yes, livestock raisers have a need to deter predators to protect their commodities, too. Hunting sometimes may play a role in that, but the preferred and much more effective method is incorporating livestock guardian animals into the herd such as sheep dogs, donkeys, or llamas.
And we can’t discuss this topic without mentioning mice plaguesSpring is mice breeding season in Australia, causing crop growers to see uncontrollable population booms. Calling for a radical solution termed the “mice plague,” farmers sink oil drums into the ground, then drive the mice into the traps. Farmers will then kill the gathered pests with poison.
They catch so many mice that they can barely estimate the number of mice killed; they measure catches instead by tons of weight!
I just want to detour for half a second to share some science about this point. One study says, "At Lascelles, three tons, approximately 200,000 mice, were caught in one night. The recorded total caught was 544 tons, at least 32,000,000 mice."
Yes, that's an old study.
We'll look at some contemporary research about the death toll of mice plagues in today's farms in a few minutes.
Spoiler alert: the death toll has risen since 1932.
A fourth way is Ocean Dead ZonesThis method kills millions of bottom-dwelling sea animals every growing season.
Here’s a quick run-down of what happens:
Farmer’s disperse nitrogen-containing fertilizers onto their fields. The crops are not efficient enough at soaking up the nutrients, so the nutrients flush away in the groundwater during irrigation or a rain shower. The nitrogen makes its way into rivers and streams, eventually being transported to oceans. These nutrients feed the cyanobacteria (which are microscopic algae), causing them to rapidly reproduce, using up all of the water’s oxygen. No oxygen is leftover for bottom-dwelling sea life, so they are suffocated. Sometimes millions will die within only miles of the coast.
Oh, but did you know that using livestock manure as fertilizer prevents this? That’s a story for another day, though…
Researchers have extensively tracked the impact of habitat disruption on wildlife populations.
Interdisciplinary Toxicology reported: "Pesticides are found as common contaminants in soil, air, water and on non-target organisms. Once there, they can harm plants and animals ranging from beneficial soil microorganisms and insects, non-target plants, fish, birds, and other wildlife."
And from NW Sotherton: "Declines in the distribution and abundance of many wildlife groups associated with agricultural ecosystems have been documented across Europe. The increasing body of evidence suggests that the processes of intensification of production have been responsible for many of these losses."
Science Magazine said: “Intensification of agriculture by use of high-yielding crop varieties, fertilization, irrigation, and pesticides has contributed substantially to the tremendous increases in food production over the past 50 years. Land conversion and intensification, however, also alter the biotic interactions and patterns of resource availability in ecosystems.”
And last but not least, Ecology and Evolution found that, "Declines in bird populations in agricultural regions of North America and Europe have been attributed to agricultural industrialization, increases in use of agrochemical application, and increased predation related to habitat modification."
Part 2: So does that mean crops fed to livestock put even more blood on meat eaters’ hands?
Vegan Myth: Crops grown to feed livestock would be better off being made available to the world’s hungry.
Farming Truth: It’s very rare, in the big picture of agriculture, for crops to be grown for no other purpose than farm animal supplementation. Over 90% of livestock grain ingredients are byproducts of the processing that turn crops into food made available to human consumers.
These byproducts are not edible by humans but would be created even if there were no livestock. This means livestock have the ability to make usable calories out of byproducts that would otherwise be waste.
Farm animals are not stealing our food. They’re making it go farther.
For example, soybean meal is a byproduct of the extraction of soybean oil. Although humans can’t eat soybean meal, it represents 2/3 of the protein in livestock grain around the world.
Other examples of livestock grain ingredients that would be produced if the whole world was vegan, but humans can’t receive viable nutrition from or would be poisoned by, include cottonseed, cottonseed oil, cottonseed meal, okara, wheat and rye seeds (after separated from the actual bran), screenings, and molasses.
A 2018 study from Translational Animal Science found, “that each individual beef sector and the entire value chain produce more high-quality, human-edible protein than is consumed in production. Accordingly, beef is a net contributor to meeting human protein requirements.”
There is a lot of confusion about how feed-to-gain ratios and the ever-heated corn debate complicate this issue, so stay tuned for a video that goes into a lot more details about this. If you’re hankering for more information this very second, check out some blog posts that cite many valuable sources in the description.
Part 3: But how many animals actually die?
Good question, and you’re not the first to ask.
About 15 years ago, a guy who was slightly out of touch with agriculture and way out of touch with critical thinking decided to write the first scholarly article on the topic in what has since become known as The Davis Study.
I broke down all of his mistakes in a very lengthy blog post linked in the description, but here are the parts we’re most interested in:
Davis referenced external research that is, for the most part, sound.We’ll still challenge its integrity later in the video, but here’s the numbers we need to know:
- The number of animals killed depends on the number of field activities (plowing, disking, harrowing, planting, cultivating, chemical applications, harvesting, etc.). For example, mowing an alfalfa field decreased the gray-tailed vole population by 50%.
- One study said that the population density of a single species, mice, is 25 beings/hectare (hectare is abbreviated ha and is the equivalent of roughly 2.5 acres). The mortality rate of field mice is estimated to be 52%.
- Another study found that the mortality rate of rats during sugar cane harvest is 77%.
- Davis averages all this science together and says crop harvests kill 60% of the wildlife in the surrounding area. (That seems fair!) So a population density of 25 beings/ha of crop land times 60% mortality rate (during harvest! wink wink!)= 15 deaths per ha.
- He finds where the USDA says 120 million ha of cropland are available for harvest in the United States. 15 deaths/ha times 120 million ha=
- 1.8 billion animals would be killed to produce a vegan diet for America.
Again, these are Davis’s numbers, and I’m sure you’re already catching on to many of the cracks in his thinking.
So let’s do our own calculations.These numbers that Davis uses to calculate field deaths in crop production only tell a tiny fraction of the story. I’m about to throw a lot of numbers around, but I would love for you to follow along with my math. I have a link to a resources blog post in the description of this video that has my Excel document that I used for all of these calculations. It also has sources for any figures that were not easily discoverable on Google. Feel free to pause this video and go download that before proceeding, if you would like!
So how many animals are there, in total?Davis’ population density of 25 animals/hectare only describes the mice living in the field, but there are hundreds of other species that inhabit those lands.
We’re only interested in mammals, birds, and reptiles that would have any possibility of being located on croplands. Reducing Suffering had a good estimate of there being 1 trillion mammals, 2.5 trillion birds, and 10 trillion reptiles inhabiting the whole earth.
For these calculations I’m going to assume that these animals are distributed evenly across the whole world, but that’s actually not fair because wildlife populations will obviously be greater in fertile farmlands than in desserts or on ice sheets. But, for ease- let’s take an even 11% of those numbers- this is the percentage of the earth’s land that houses crops, then divide that by the number of hectares contained in that 11%, which is 13.4 billion hectares (this is on all of earth—Davis’ 120 million hectare was only for the United States), to get a unit that relates to Davis’ numbers.
Now we get an average of 8 mammals, 21 birds, and 82 reptiles that are inhabiting one hectare of farmland, for a total of 111 animals at risk in one hectare of crop land.
And how many of those animals are actually killed?Davis correctly identifies all field activities (plowing, disking, harrowing, planting, cultivating, chemical applications, and harvesting, and let’s not forget that many of these are done two or three times per harvest), but then he references the mortality rate just for harvesting (which is only one field activity), and uses that mortality rate for his calculations, completely forgetting that the other field activities will contribute to additional deaths.
A low-ball assumption would be that each field activity besides harvesting (which is understandably the most extreme mortality contributor) kills 5% of the wildlife population, times an average of six field activities means farmers' actions external to harvesting kill 30% of the wildlife population, and harvesting alone kills 60%, for a total of 90% mortality of wildlife populations in a crop field.
90% may sound extreme, but it actually falls short of the situations Davis referenced. For example, an Oregon farmer observed that all of the small mammals, ground birds, and reptiles were killed when he harvested his crops.
So, if 90% of 111 animals (111 being pulled from the previous table) living in one hectare of cropland is killed, that means 100 animals will die on one hectare of crops that’s planted, grown, and harvested.
And Then There’s Ocean Dead ZonesAnimal deaths caused by crop production can be found far outside of crop fields. According to that same Reducing Suffering source, there are 100 trillion animals in all 6.38 billion hectare of ocean. Ocean dead zones impact about 24 million hectares of ocean, so, when we multiply that fraction by 100 trillion, we find that 376.152 billion sea animals are at risk in these coastal waters. Again, this is an unfair estimate because coasts are kind of like the farmlands of the ocean where the water is nutrient rich, meaning that these areas will have a higher population density than deeper regions. However, we’re using the even distribution assumption for simplicity’s sake.
Divide that number by the 13.4 billion hectare of cropland that the fertilizer that causes this phenomenon originates from, and we identify 28 marine animals at risk per hectare of cropland farmed.
Let’s say half of the animals in hypoxic zones die, which, if you go and review the literature linked in the description, seems, tragically, to be far below the actual carnage rate. This gives us 14 deaths added on to the 100 wildlife animals that perished in the crop field directly.
100 + 14 = 114 deaths per hectare of cropland farmed
Part 4: There’s no way that’s more than slaughterhouses kill… right?!
America is a great example of a livestock-heavy agricultural system, so let’s use that kill count:
About 10.76 trillion animals are being slaughtered annually in the US. There are 582.115 million acres (236 million ha) of pastureland that house the livestock in the US. 10.76 billion animals killed divided by 236 million ha of pastureland means that 45.6 animals are slaughtered per ha of pastureland.
To reiterate, 114 animals die per hectare in crop production, while only 46 die per hectare in meat production.
Part 5: Converting those numbers to food units
Obviously, we don’t eat food by the hectare it’s produced on. We eat it in terms of calories and servings. Athletes are especially concerned about protein, so let’s use grams of protein as a unit, too. Time to convert! Sources for any of these numbers that were not easily discoverable on Google are cited in the Excel document. Luckily, these statistics are harder and less ambiguous.
We’ll start by taking into account 6 different animal productsFirst, CaloriesWe see that, on average, one animal slaughtered yields 621.67 pounds of food. If there are an average of 848 calories in one pound of an animal product, than we get an average of 344.5 thousand calories from the death of only one animal. Let’s take the inverse of that and multiply it by 100,000 calories to get a meaningful number, and we learn that 4.17 animals die in livestock production for every 100,000 calories produced.
For protein…Animal products average 92.5 grams of protein per pound of food, showing us that we get an average of over 31.4 thousand grams of protein for every animal we process. Inverse and multiply by 10,000 (it will make more since why I’m changing the number this way in a minute), and we identify an average of 3.68 animals that die per 10,000 grams of animal protein we produce.
And for servings…There is an average of 5.12 servings per pound of these animal products produced. That gives us a little over 2,200 servings of animal-based food for each animal that has to die, resulting in 8.31 deaths for every 1,000 animal servings produced.
Now, let’s look at cropsI chose these seven plant-based products: corn, potatoes, lentils, kale, soybean, wheat, and beans, because corn, potatoes, and wheat are diet staples, and the other options are relied on by vegans for their nutritional content, especially in regards to protein, which will make these calculations generous to plant-based activists.
Again, to start with calories…These plant products provide an average of 593 calories per pound of food, giving us an average of over 1.4 million calories per hectare of crop field. We’ll divide the number of deaths that result from the cultivation of that hectare by this amount of calories, then multiply it, just like when we did animal products, by 100,000 calories to get an intelligible number.
This shows us that an average of 12.34 animals have to die to produce 100,000 calories of plant-based products. This is in comparison to only 4.17 deaths from the production of animal products. At long last, these numbers are starting to take shape, and the results are surprising!
And now for protein…One pound of these plant products produces an average of 45.1 grams of protein, resulting in a yield of almost 86.5 thousand grams of plant protein per hectare. Divide the 114 deaths by this number of grams and multiply it by the same number that we did for animal proteins, 10,000, and we see that 18.04 animals die in the production of 10,000 grams of plant-based protein.
This is in comparison to only 3.68 deaths for 10,000 grams of animal-based protein. Whoa.
Finally, we look again at servings…There is an average of 5.3 servings in one pound of these plant foods, resulting in a yield of over 14.3 thousand servings of crops per hectare cultivated. Divide 114 deaths by this number of servings and multiply the product by the same amount we did for animal servings, 1,000, and we learn that 18.35 animals die to produce 1,000 servings of plant-based food.
This is in comparison to only 8.31 deaths for 1,000 servings of animal-based foods.
Let’s Put All of This TogetherGee! That’s a lot of numbers. Now I have consolidated them to this table to really get the full impact of what this all means.
If you take nothing else away from this video, please hear this:
Plant products kill 2.96 times more animals per calorie, 4.9 times more per gram of protein, and 2.21 times more per serving than animal products. Plant foods are over twice as deadly as animal foods.
A worthy note before moving on is the scale that I had to multiply these figures to get whole numbers of deaths. 100,000 calories?! It takes the average person seven weeks to consume that much food!
And I’m not trying to suggest that there are so few deaths that it’s insignificant. I agree that a single life lost is too many. I will stand right beside vegans in the assertion that we should try to minimize the death toll. However, I will not condone their diet as a method to achieve those minimums. That’s just not what the data shows.
Furthermore, I think that the vegan movement has been really irresponsible in suggesting that, when you eat a hamburger, you’re eating a cow. You’re actually eating only 1 out of the 750 pounds that that animal’s death, which I agree is unfortunate, contributed to our food supply. Another way to think about this issue in real-world terms is that one livestock animal can provide the main course to hundreds of meals while plant foods are just or one ingredient that has to be accompanied by at least five or six others to create a single meal.
Side note: you may be looking at these graphs and noticing that we get much more food, in terms of servings, protein, and calories, on land that grows plants instead of land that grows animals. That is a great observation and leads us to a very important question: why, then, don’t we make all farmland crop fields to maximize our food supply. That question is addressed in my video, “A Complete Debunk of Every Cowspiracy Statistic.” Moving along…
Part 6: But Omnivores Eat Plants, Too!
It’s one thing to say that we kill this many animals with plant production versus this many animals with livestock production, but it’s important to acknowledge that plant products are vital components of our diet and we have no choice but to support the killing in crop fields. For this reason, we must do this comparison of a diet consisting of both plant and animal products versus a diet of only crops.
It’s true that omnivores have the blood of slaughterhouses and crop production on their hands. So does that mean they automatically kill more than vegans? Let’s go a little deeper into the numbers…
The starting place of how much food we eat in a day is (or at least should be) servingsTo figure out how many plant versus animal servings we should be eating in a day, let’s look at this good ole fashion food pyramid. Now I know, MyPlate is king of the jungle now, but this is merely a visual representation and doesn’t give us solid numbers we can work with like this figure does.
According to this pyramid, an omnivore realistically eats 15 plant servings for every 5 animal servings, which simplifies into a plants to animals proportion of 3 to 1, while vegans will eat the same amount of food, only all as plant servings, giving us a proportion of 4 to 0. Now we multiply these numbers by the servings proportion from part 5, where we found that crop production kills 2.21 times more animals than livestock production does per serving.
Remember that the 2.21 is amplified by 1,000 servings, so this is not saying that these numbers are indicative of how many animals we actually kill in a day- it’s only a proportion. These numbers work together to show us that omnivores cause a proportion of 7.63 deaths for every 8.84 deaths a vegan causes in a day of eating. Simplified, this means that a vegan kills 1.16 times more animals in a day of eating than an omnivore. It may sound small, but let’s remember this is the lowest end of the spectrum because the proportion for servings was lower than those for calories and protein.
Part 7: Vegans Have Tried To Respond
Davis’ research sparked heated reactions from plant-based advocates, and this video would not be complete without acknowledging them. Unfortunately, their criticisms are more flawed than Davis’ report.
Like everything else in this video, this is a synthesized version of a much longer blog post that details their entire articles. Check that out in the description, if you’re skeptical. But, in a nutshell, here are these vegans’ main mistakes:
Matheny’s Response
- Takes Davis’ numbers at face value without considering the field activities Davis didn’t account for
- He fails to catch that Davis completely misjudges the impact of forage cultivation on wildlife populations
- And he mistakenly believes that forestland is being removed for livestock, but livestock can thrive in forest environments without cutting any trees down (this is another point explored in that Cowspiracy video)
Lamey’s Response
- Disregards predation of field mice (he’s calling into question that 60% mortality rate during harvesting we used way back when) because it wasn’t a human that killed them, conveniently ignoring that these mice never would’ve been harmed without farm activity
- He misrepresents the study’s finding that predators change their hunting patterns to attempt asserting that these mice become the owls and weasels sustaining life source, which isn’t what the study says
- He blatantly lies about sugarcane’s growing time in an attempt to knock out the study that found harvesting killed a 70% wildlife mortality rate
- Then he makes the excuse that, because the science is in its infancy (never mind the references from the 1970s…), we should give up on estimating wildlife death toll…. Wouldn’t that be convenient for you
Middleton's Response
- Adds deaths from the byproducts of food processing I discussed in Part 2 to slaughterhouse totals as if humans weren’t the primary consumers of those crops; again, those deaths would continue to occur even if every farm animal magically disappeared
- He takes Davis’ numbers at face value without considering the field activities and species other than mice Davis didn’t account for
- He only represents his calculations in the unit of calories
- He says female laying hens are killed for meat and then plays the factory farm card as if he’s ever stepped foot on a farm
- He misunderstands dairy practices such as artificial insemination (See my video called, “Why Dairy Farmers Do What They Do”) for more information about that
- He believes more predators are hunted for livestock which we all know is totally bogus
- And then wrongly claims that cattle increase soil erosion harming species diversity… when that is literally the opposite of the truth
Part 8: Mike Archer’s Research
Mike Archer, a professor at UNSW in Sydney, Australia, wrote his own thoughts on the issue. Here is what he said:
“In Australia, producing wheat and other grains results in at least 25 times more sentient animals being killed per kilogram of useable protein, more environmental damage, and a great deal more animal cruelty than does farming red meat.”
Finally! A researcher that has a clue!
To be fair, this is the worst-case scenario model because he’s comparing the atrocious mice plagues I discussed in part one to grass-fed beef. But it’s one that really happens and he gives some great insight into both production systems.
Hats off to this guy! Here are some other shining points of his discussion:
- He considered that most agricultural land cannot sustain crops at all and the reason why so much acreage is primarily pasture
- He applauded livestock’s ability to promote rangeland biodiversity while converting inedible grasses into human-usable calories (PREACH MAN!)
- He shined light on the fact that even “grain-fed” cattle still eat exclusively grass throughout most of their lives
Part 9: "But you meant to kill the cows, so that’s way worse."
This argument, called the morality of intent, is quite insane. Basically, vegans have tried to counter that it doesn’t matter how many animals die, only whether or not we intended for them to die.
They say, “Because we’re not purposely murdering the animals in the crop fields, their deaths don’t count.”
In my personal opinion, that actually makes it worse. At least the livestock deaths mean something. In a philosophical way, those animals continue to exist because their energy is sustaining our lives. But, in the crop field, the farmers are not even aware of most of the carnage they cause.
When consumers go to the grocery store, they walk by the meat aisle and associate the meat with the animals that were sacrificed to produce it. Shoot, there might even be a picture of a cow on the package. But people don’t walk through the produce section and see a poisoned mouse by the carrots or severed snake near the potatoes. I would argue that livestock deaths at least get the respect of acknowledgement.
The animals don’t know if we mean to kill them or not. It makes them no difference. The baby mouse doesn’t say, “Oh, I can’t be sad that my mom’s not here to feed me because the farmer didn’t mean to crush her.” That’s absurd! The infant just lays there, suffering, until it dies of hunger.
For the first time, I’m with Davis on this issue: a death is a death, and both types of killings occur because of human intervention. If it weren’t for farming, the animals would not have died.
Part 10: Factoring Suffering Into the Least Harm Principle
At this point, vegans might try saying, "Okay, fine. It doesn’t really matter how many die, only if they suffer. And slaughterhouses are torture, ya know!"
Up to this point, I’ve only been discussing the concept of least harm in terms of number of deaths.
However, many would argue that what matters more than how many animals have to be killed is either how good those animals’ lives are up until their deaths or how unpleasant their deaths are.
In a slaughterhouse, animals are rendered unconscious before any bodily harm happens. Mike Archer had some more great insight on this issue:
“When cattle, kangaroos and other meat animals are harvested they are killed instantly. Mice die a slow and very painful death from poisons. From a welfare point of view, these methods are among the least acceptable modes of killing.”
I hope to have a future video about exactly how effective stunning is at preventing pain and what animals that go through slaughterhouses really experience, but, for the purpose of this conversation, let’s compare the basic fact that they are stunned to the realities of crop farming:
The bunnies and groundhogs don’t have the luxury of being stunned. Their death is not instantaneous. Poisoning from pesticides or the toxins used in mice plagues often take days of suffering before the animal finally loses sensibility. A snake or squirrel speared by a plow may have to endure hours of excruciating pain before they bleed out.
Because it’s okay to not trust me or some guy at a college you’ve never heard of, there is a blog post linked in the description that details each method of slaughter and its welfare implications. And… you guessed it, it has tons of further reading for you to fact check the day away. Again, stay tuned for a video version of that.
Part 11: In Conclusion
So, let's recap:
- In part 1, we learned that crop production kills animals through habitat disruption, direct physical contact, hunting, ocean dead zones, and mice plagues
- Part 2 explained that farm animals aren’t really eating those crops-- they’re eating the byproducts of turning those crops into human foods
- Parts 3 and 4 showed us that 114 animals die per hectare of crop land farmed versus only 46 animals dying per hectare of pastureland for livestock.
- In Part 5, we turned that into units related to food, showing us that plant products kill 2.96 times more animals per calorie, 4.9 times more per gram of protein, and 2.21 times more per serving than animal products do.
- Part 6 acknowledged that omnivores eat plants, too, so we found that a vegan kills 1.16 times more animals with the amount of servings realistically consumed compared with an omnivore.
- Part 7 poked holes in vegan responses to this issue by displaying that they were devoid of agricultural awareness and relied on Davis’ flawed numbers
- Part 8 brought in our shining hero, Mike Archer, and his admittedly extreme example where crop production kills 25 times more animals than livestock slaughter
- Part 9 laughed at the morality of intent argument
- And Part 10 explained the depths of suffering in wildlife versus livestock
Thank you so much for watching! Again, I know that this video was ridiculously long, so I really appreciate your time.
If you have any questions, comment on this video or shoot me an email at [email protected].
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Until next time… good bye!