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A vegetarian diet isn't much more ethical than an omnivore diet, anyway. Veganism has a much better argument.
People seem to focus on the ills of the dairy industry when talking about vegetarians, but the egg industry is particularly egregious.
If ethical = animal welfare, perhaps.
But when factoring in e.g. water consumption and CO2e per unit of food consumed, I would argue the average vegetarian diet to be significantly more ethical compared with the average omnivorous diet.
Obviously the type of animals involved, the way they are treated and killed, and religious views add more complexity to this case.
edit: the essence of my point is that this isn't a black and white matter.
I think that's a flawed argument. Cow milk production requires that cows get pregnant once a year, and the calves can't all become milk cows, too - thus, cow milk production cannot exist without cow meat production. And IIRC milk products still have a worse environmental impact than chicken meat.
TBH I'm not sure about the environmental impact of eggs vs meat. But animal welfare is generally the main reason why people keep to vegetarian or vegan diets, and chicken farming is not great in terms of animal welfare.
The bottom line is: 1 cow birth per year (or let's call it cow deaths, because that's what is most relevant here) yields around 10.000L of milk. Out of which around 1000kg of cheese can be produced, plus of course the meat of that calf.
Does that make it ethical? I don't think so. But I would say around 1.5-2x less unethical compared to eating meat, which is significant.
Whether something is moral or ethical doesn't depend on the commercial benefit you can derive from it! What the actual fuck!!
Not OP, but I think the argument is more about nutritional benefit than commercial benefit.
Yes, thank you for clarifying this.
Not sure why anyone would assume monetary/commercial benefit here.
I read a book called "change of heart" by a vegan animal activist, which was all about research into what actually worked in terms of convincing people to reduce animal suffering. For him, it would be ideal if we reduced animal suffering to zero. But even encouraging someone to eat less meat (e.g. Meatless Mondays) reduced animal suffering, and was a win in his book. I kind of agree with that.
I thought you were talking about environmental impact? Both cow milk and cow meat have a worse environmental footprint than chicken meat.
My point is: ethics should not be confused with a single dimension of ethics. Whether something I'd ethical, depends on your beliefs.
Simultaneously, if animal welfare is all we optimize for, vegetarianism is a step forward. And indeed, so is pollotarianism when optimizing for just environmental impact. Perfect is the enemy of good.
For water consumption and CO2, avoid beef, milk and cheese. Chicken and eggs are no issue, they cause less harm in that regard than many plant products (like almonds).
Not sure I’m getting your point, but meat tastes better than lettuce.