once I switched there’s no way I’m ever going back to cow’s milk.
Why?
Health, much greater taste variety, no cruelty involved to make it, environmental benefits.
The natural ecosystem of the land that is now crop was obliterated before the first seed was sewn, and most likely the soil’s nutrients are depleted more and more each year, due to pesticides and crude plowing techniques.
If a moral high ground is what you’re looking for, drink water.
Every plot of land used to grow crop represents countless animals that used to live there, and were wiped out by the farmer. Farmers constantly battle against pests, which too are animals, just trying to live. Vultures are often seen following combine harvesters, to prey on the corpses of field mice and other small mammals that get caught in the blades. Zero harm is a myth.
It sounds to me you want to make everything relative so that the conclusion is “everything involves some harm, so I might just eat me some steaks and drink some cow milk, it won’t matter”. But it matters greatly. So let’s not do that.
You're mistaken about my motivations - I believe that eating ethically sourced, grass fed, grass finished, certified organic meat is better for the environment than a plant based diet. Watch the video I linked if you'd like to understand how someone could possibly make that argument.
There is no perfect way to produce consumable resources because it takes other resources to make them, whether it’s animals, land, water, fuel or whatnot.
Someone will always find something to be unhappy or offended with even if we grow oat milk in space in a vacuum and teleport it back to earth.
Reducing horrendous practices of abusing animals to have a milky cup of coffee is great step forward and people have the right to feel they’re making a positive impact without judgements that’s it not good enough or that poor soil’s nutrients are taken away instead now.
You can’t change the world being binary about these things, it’s a step forward in the right direction.
We’ll change world being agile and iterative, not by turning it into a waterfall project of “everything now is magically 100% environmentally friendly and everyone’s happy”.
If you think about it, there actually is a perfect way to produce consumable resources, and it existed long before humans came along. Ruminant animals graze, migrate and their dropping rejuvenate soil in perfect balance with nature.
I'm not making the case that it's practical or even possible to feed 8 billion people in this way, but the way that we're depleting the Earth's nutrients with industrial farming is not practical in the long term either.