All of these types of easy comparisons are utter nonsense. Most of these types of graphs are used to enforce an existing viewpoint, and the data are massaged to fit the view. IMO
All production of food kills animals, even if it is the harvesting of plants. Nobody evacuates the fields when the combine comes through, pesticides are regularly used, and all grain elevators have rats and mice. In terms of food animals, none of them would exist if they were not being raised for food. There are no wild cows, pig, goats, chickens, horses or sheep. In some cases, there are near wild relatives but most humans eat domesticated animals.
If you really want to count the costs of food production and plants vs animals or eggs vs. meat; you need to look at total production costs: amount of fertilizer, and pesticides used to harvest the food (meat using more than the direct eating of plants), amount of waste generated, how the waste is disposed of, cost of shipping, including environmental costs; and other associated costs of production. A home dairy cow and a backyard flock of chickens, with the composted waste going onto the veggie garden is an entire world different from a large scale hog farm producing as much waste as a small city, but without the sewage treatment plant; or from commercially grown tomatoes shipped halfway across the country. This is a hugely complex issue, and reducing it to someone's idea of "lives lost" is silly.
All production of food kills animals, even if it is the harvesting of plants. Nobody evacuates the fields when the combine comes through, pesticides are regularly used, and all grain elevators have rats and mice. In terms of food animals, none of them would exist if they were not being raised for food. There are no wild cows, pig, goats, chickens, horses or sheep. In some cases, there are near wild relatives but most humans eat domesticated animals.
If you really want to count the costs of food production and plants vs animals or eggs vs. meat; you need to look at total production costs: amount of fertilizer, and pesticides used to harvest the food (meat using more than the direct eating of plants), amount of waste generated, how the waste is disposed of, cost of shipping, including environmental costs; and other associated costs of production. A home dairy cow and a backyard flock of chickens, with the composted waste going onto the veggie garden is an entire world different from a large scale hog farm producing as much waste as a small city, but without the sewage treatment plant; or from commercially grown tomatoes shipped halfway across the country. This is a hugely complex issue, and reducing it to someone's idea of "lives lost" is silly.
