But it tastes better

The cow meat is already there, in the store. Individual choices do not affect the climate. It is disrespectful to not consume it.

I'm no vegan but that's a common vegan talking point

Hey non-vegan, fun fact: No one really cares when you tell them eating plants are more efficient.

Common responses include "bAc0Nnnnnn!" and "I'm gonna eat two times the amount of meat to make your efforts useless".

The animal industry feeds the plants as much as the plants feed the animals. I'm not sure how vegans feel about synthetic fertilizer like miracle grow, but that's what will have to be used in place of manure if the meat industry goes away.

Many of the organic crops grown use animal manure to fertilize the plants. I know you can use seaweed and other plants for compost(weeds are already composted back in via tilling, seaweed requires harvesting from the ocean or long distance shipping from farms), as well as cycling crops to prevent nutrient deficiency.....

BUT manure doesn't just add nutrients. It adds beneficial bacteria that helps keep the soil healthy and make the nutrients bioavailable to plants. It conditions the soil for water retention, and helps break up clay soil and add organic matter to sandy soil.

Will vegans keep animals just for manure? Or will organic lables on food be less important? Are we going to start scraping the forests for leaves to chop up an add to farm soil? That can't be good for forests though. I guess I'm just confused about how to maintain large farms without access to large amounts of manure.

Plants having no nervous system is being challenged with the idea that the plant itself is its central nervous system.

They react to stimulus, they emit sounds (different ones when in “pain”), and communicate with each other.

They don’t have consciousness in a way we understand

I dont mean this as a “dunk” but more of a how neat is that

Veganism is a philosophy that calls for reducing harm to animals where practical and possible. You can conjure up whatever hypothetical you like, and if you specifically look for situations where harm to animals is unavoidable, then harm to animals will be... unavoidable, in those situations.

However, the vast majority of choices you'll make that affect the lives of animals don't happen within the context of these sorts of thoughts experiments. You don't have to eat rats or bacon in order to survive. So it's not really relevant, unless you're actually in that sort of situation.

Personally, I simply wouldn't keep a snake as a pet, and if I had one, I'd give it away. The delimma you've presented pits my feeling of wanting a snake against my ethical beliefs about not harming animals, and I consider that ethical belief to be more important. I could always just watch videos of snakes or go see them at the zoo or whatever. But if you did one of those, "You're stranded on a deserted island with nothing to eat but a crate full of frozen steaks that washed ashore," then sure, I'd prioritize my survival because it wouldn't be practical to avoid them in that situation.

I am mostly vegan and my cat and dog eat mostly meat 🖕