this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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The fact that you don't see the bugs being killed in the agricultural process do not mean they do not die because of your choosing. Killing bugs is a necessary part of the making of all the food you eat. It's not an "accident" or "undeliberated". The word "pesticide" for instance should give you a hint. Also a lot of the cleaning process of any vegetable is meant, among other things, to get rid of any bugs present.
You also, presumably, live in a house, what do you think that happened with the thousands of bugs that used to live in that plot of land. They didn't die by accident, they died because you wanted a cozy house instead of sleeping on the grass. The clothes you wear, all consumer products you use, your phone. Millions of bug deaths could be prevented if you decided to live caveman style. If they die is your choosing. And everyone else respect that choice. Respect yourself other people choices that imply a small margin more of animal deaths.
I'm very well aware of the impact my existence has on the planet, but I can still try and minimize that impact as much as possible, even without taking it to the extreme and ending society. It's not all or nothing.
If you want to minimize the amount of bugs killed, not eating meat is a great way to achieve that. Instead of harvesting tons of crops to then feed to animals, you could just eat those crops yourself. You'd even end up needing less space to grow your food overall, meaning you could re-naturalize a lot of farmland and create a habitat for billions of insects.
How about you respect other animals right to bodily integrity.
You pit your line respecting animals body integrity at one particular position. As you have already recognized.
Respect that other people's position of that line are different. At the end of the day you kill 1000 animals a day, eating meat I might kill 1050 animals a day. Not that much of a difference so... Just respect, it's not that hard not to try enforce your way of life in others for such a small difference in animal deaths. Who knows maybe due your other habits you end up killing more animals than me. Do you do international travel by any chance? Do you drive cars or mount on motorized vehicles daily?
Be aware and prepare to be heavily judged by others if you pretend to judge people on those basis.
At the end we should just make a throughout body count of animals killed, including insects, you'll probably be surprised by the results.
Or, much easier option, just respect that other people eat meat. And don't try to enforce your traditions on others.
I think you're grossly underestimating how much land and it takes just to feed an animal until it is ready to slaughter. I'm sorry to say but you'd be indirectly killing an order of magnitude more insects by eating meat, when considering all that feed.
I think a veggie or vegan diet, maybe even organic veg if possible, would help you preserve insect life (which really needs preserving as you rightly point out)