Philosophical Vegan Forum

On a scale from 1-10, 1 being very little suffering and 10 being extreme suffering, how would you rate the suffering caused by the below "foods"? To clarify, I don't mean the industry as a whole. Rather, before responding think of it as damage caused if you were to eat 500 grams of the particular food, considering both the direct harm to the animal (and her loved ones) and indirect environmental harm. In order to simplify the discussion please ignore the harm to your own body and the cost of the particular food and potential opportunity cost thereof.

Here are the foods followed by my damage assessment.

Pork (factory farm) 10
Beef (factory farm) 10
Bivalves: 1
Fish 4 (if values differ between different types of fish, please point this out)
Deer (hunted) 4
Dairy (factory farm) 7
Poultry (factory farm) 9
Poultry (free range) ?
Hen eggs: (factory farm) 5
Hen eggs; (free range) ?
Foie Gras: 10

Something like this, I would guess:

Pork (factory farm) 10
Beef (factory farm) 10
Bivalves (fished): 3
Oysters (rope grown): 0
Fish 6
Deer (hunted) 7
Dairy (factory farm) 7 [based on weight, milk is mostly water, and cows output a huge amount of it relative to the individual count]
Poultry (factory farm) 10
Poultry (free range) 9
Hen eggs: (factory farm) 9
Hen eggs; (free range) 8
Beef (free range): 8
Foie Gras: 10

I always suspected lacto vegetarians cause more suffering than pescetarians.

I thought about asking this same question to meat eaters. It would be interesting how they would react and respond. I'm sure many, perhaps even most, would refuse to partake in such "vegan propaganda exercises." Those who were to participate would probably give some very strange answers.

How would you rate palm oil?

miniboes wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2017 3:33 am How would you rate palm oil?

It would probably take a bit longer to consume 500 grams of palm oil but for the sake of argument I would give it a 5. It affects highly sentient animals in a very bad way but the number of animals suffering because of the consumption is probably lower than in the other examples.

miniboes wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2017 3:33 am How would you rate palm oil?

I would be more concerned about the burning of the peat, which releases a huge amount of greenhouse gas and affects far more. Of course the tragedies wrought upon orangutans are horrible and probably factor in.

I would not place it very high based on weight, though. The issue is mainly that people just eat huge amounts of it, and it's the surplus demand that's harmful (rather than as much ongoing harm as in most animal agriculture).

It's a complex topic.

Maybe a 2?