environment : cows don't create carbon, all their carbon came from their food (plants) which took it from the atmosphere, it is a loop, at no point carbon is created (thermodynamics). in fact cows are not only carbon neutral they are carbon negative as we reuse the leather (which is made of carbon) and they poop on the ground which partly turns into soil, whereas crop monoculture not only destroy the soils but also kills a lot of small animals and polute the environment. carbon emissions don't matter, what matters is carbon footprint and in the case of ground fed cow, they actually take a lot of carbon from the atmosphere and put it back into the ground. then you have the fact that livestock can restore soils whilst monocultures not only destroy it but polute the environment and water around it due to pesticides and kill insects and fishes. it actively contribute to desertification which means an increase in atmosphere co2. also they tend to import more stuff from all around the world including suplements that cause a lot of pollution to produce. ethics: veganism kills more animals than a carnivore diet based on ground fed meat as vegans not only rely on crop monoculture which kills thosands of rodent but also other small animals, birds, foxes, bunnies insects and fishes (due to water polution), without taking into account the insects that are an important part of soil health. Let's say you ate only meat, you'd eat about a cow every one or two years. if you eat crops monoculture you'd kill about 50 rodents, small birds and other animals per years. not only that but a lot of animals will die due to the added polution. 1) ethics : crop death is a thing, thousands of rodents, birds, and other small animals are killed per field per year. and i'm not even counting the insects and fish that are later killed by pesticides. if you ate only 100% ground fed or wild caught meat, you'd kill about 1 cow every one or two year (so that's 0.5 life a year average) if you ate only food that came from crop monoculture, on average you'd kill at least 50 rodents and birds / year without counting the insects, fish and predators that relies on birds and rodent or animals that proliferate due to the abondance of food only to starve later after the harvesting. i can go deeper into it if you ask me, but the average monoculture fed human kills hundreds of animals / year without even eating meat. 2) environment, so the biggest argument is carbon emission, but it is just bonkers, cows don't create carbon, all the carbon a cows emit came from its food (the plants) which in turn took it directly from the atmosphere, it's a loop, at no point carbon is created that simply thermodynamics, in fact, since we reuse leather and cows shit everywhere (there shit is part carbon) and that shit partially turn into soil, they actually help take carbon from the atmosphere. carbon emission don't matter, what matters is carbon footprint. if you look at crop monoculture, not only they widely use fossil fuels for production (which do increase co2) but the pesticides used absolutely ruin the environment, without even talking about desertification (the land is being slowly killed by crop monoculture so they have to cut forest to have more land whereas holistic livestock managment can actually restore soil health) Then you have the transport, a million kcal of animal food will need less truck for transport than a million kcal of plant food so plant food transport result in more fossil fuel and co2 emission. then since you can't be vegan long term without supplements, there is the chemical waste often left from supplement production which also polute, then the supplement transport since they are often produce at the other side of the world. bear in mind that all the environment dammage result in even more indirect animal death than what was counted in 1. also, it is really hard to eat vegan with only local food in most part of the world, so that's again, more transport. then a lot of people will miss animal products so they'll buy "replacement" which are not only plastic packaged but require again, a lot of transport on top of poluting not only because they often came from crop monoculture but also because they are processed foods. and then third, there is the health issues, which i'm the most informed on, but you told me you don't really care about that part, altough, i can tell you that, even with supplement you will ruin your health longterm. also, the "land use" argument is bs, if you do the math, you could actually feed > 10B people with current grassland, and that's without counting that you could tripple the available land by restoring the soil that way. if you also count the seas and wild caught you could easily feed 20B peoples. overall, for health, environment AND ethics : grass fed / wild caught animal products > veganism > crop / monoculture fed animal products. Also the "most crop monoculture land is used to feed animal" is also kinda bonkers as cattle will eat > 85% of indigestible matter for humans, if we didn't eat animals, the land use wouldn't be reduced drastically but we'd trash or burn a lot of that undigestible matter (mostly fiber). take corn, you can only eat the corn, the cow can eat the whole plant (which is most of the plant). and anyway, i'm against crop monoculture, you could actually feed everyone with grass fed and wild caught. the industry is just following what people buy as it is cheaper to produce and make more profit. vegans would have had much more success if they pushed for quality meat instead of no animal products at all. lastly health: we need cholesterol, to name a few, a plant based diet lacks vitamins A, D, K2, B12 and other B vitamins. it also lacks EPA, DHA, DPA. (in the case of vitamin A, plants don't contain vitamin A, they contain beta carotene, which if you look the study, we can convert only from 0 to 4% to actual vitamin A and with diminishing returns meaning, the more you eat beta carotene, the less you are able to convert it to vitamin A). and i could probably list 50 to 60 nutrients. not only you cannot supplement all of them, a lot of things are not the same in their supplement form( ex increase in dietetary calcium which has been shown to reducde cvd whilst when took from suplement had the exact oposite effect). i can go much deeper into the health part but that was a tldr. also bear in mind, when i said that someone that only eat crop monoculture food will result in 50 animals death / year, that was only the direct death, if you count the indirect ones (ex fish killed by pesticides) that'd go up to 400 easily. it is at least 50. Also there is the ethics of ruinning your own health / humanity's health if you push for it on others. Anyway, you can ask yourself why so much of the medias push for veganism and whatnot, the reason is because it is cheap, profitable for big megacorps (substitute, supplement, pharma) and there is an agenda behind it. and just for the carbon argument, you know they are blatently lying to people's face. If you think B12 is the only issue with veganism you are the one being deeply missinformed, i could list you over 40 nutrients you need that you can't find in plant foods, we also need cholesterol but to name a few : a plant based diet lacks vitamins A, D, K2, cholesterol, B12 and other B vitamins. it also lacks EPA, DHA, DPA (which are essential for your brain). it also lacks some types of fats and amino acids (creatine for ex but there are more) not only you cannot supplement all of them, a lot of things are not the same in their supplement form( ex increase in dietetary calcium which has been shown to reducde cvd whilst when took from suplement had the exact oposite effect). i can go much deeper into the health part but that was a tldr. also, there is a difference between blood levels and what the cells are able to absorb, you could have a blood very rich in one nutrient yet be deficient in it, for ex the cells might need another copound to be able to use it. then i'm not even gonna address all antinutrients found in plant foods. Also many supplements come with toxic leftover solvent and futhermore they aren't regulated so you are not even sure you are getting what you are paying for. and lastly, when you force cells to synthetise stuff that you normally get through your food, they make waste products that can dammage them. ex synthetizing creatine result in homocysteine as a waste product, if you don't eat any creatine, you'll have high homocysteine which is highly related to cvd (and it has been shown that vegans do have super high homocysteine levels). don't take some kind of bullshit moral high ground because you have been unconsciously indoctrinated by a cult. if you cared about the least harm principle, you'd eat exclusively large herbivores that are exclusively grass and ground fed + free range. no veganism doesn't kill less animals than many diets that include meat. no it isn't better for the environment it is in fact a lot worse. and no it isn't good for your health it'll in fact destroy it long term. the whole of veganism is based on lies, ommissions and missrepresentation, it is pushed by big corporations and phramaceuticals. now, i'm against factory farming, but you shouldn't ignore the fact that it isn't the only kind of farming there is. just like your "uh if people bought less meat the market would follow"', if people stopped buying shit meat and bought quality local grass fed and free range meat, the market would follow. but normies will be normies and with "if's" you could change the world. vegans would have had a 10x better ethical and environmental impact if they just tried to convince people to get better quality animal product instead of trying to make them stop alltogether. and if you think your vegan diet doesn't result in any animal death and suffering oh boy you are wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ITgdgPUMuY anyway, that's only the peak of the iceberg, but it goes much much deeper, if you actually do the math, the average vegan diet kills few hundreds of animals / year. if you were to only eat grass and ground fed free range cows or venison / hunted animals, a single cow could feed you for about 3 years, up to 5 if you count its milk and cheese, and up to 10 if you eat things on the side. assuming you eat only meat, that's one life every 3 years. compared to hundreds / year with monoculture based veganism, let alone how much it relies on international transport and the agrochemical and supplement industry.