> Chicken flesh, is food, ... So is Tofu ... thus people in those countries were going without.
One takes 77% of the land, the other one 7%. We have so many animals to feed, that we need to deforest the Amazon (that was the discussion about, wasn't it) to be able to feed them all.
Just by those numbers alone it's clear that without the need to feed those armies of domestic animals we'd been able to slash international trade of those foods significantly. Were we not growing corn and seeds for animals, we'd have a lot of space to feed our populations with veggies.
> which have chopped down many of their forests, such as the USA
Again, if our needs were not that high, we wouldn't need to cut anything, but we'd be able to regrow them.
> I'll assume you're a vegetarian
No, vegan. And by choosing to eat legumes and peas I'm using 10-100x less land compared to the regular carnist.
> an issue I had with being vegetarian, one, I was hungry and tired
Sometimes people try to remove meat and eating just the rest. Or when being vegan, to be a fruitarian or eat raw veggies. Or they eat just the processed stuff. Beer, cocacola and oreos are vegan, but not healthy and cannot sustain you for long.
You have to make sure you're eating properly. In this day and age there are caloric tables online, meal plans, sites full of recipes, studies etc. etc. But let's not pretend it's overly complicated.
25% of your plate should be proteins (lentils, beans, tofu, tempeh, seitan, peas ...), 25% whole grains (brown rice, quinoa, whole wheat bread, whole grain pasta), 30% vegetables (variety of colors to get different nutriets), 10-15% fruit (apple, banana, berries), 5-10% fats (avocados, nuts, seeds, or a drizzle of olive oil).
That's it. No vegans think twice about it when cooking. Variety is a key for filling and healthy diet. With such diet you won't feel hungry.
I did it wrong too, few decades ago, turned vegetarian and ate as badly as my girlfriend did. I couldn't do it longer than few months, then ate meat for many years again, in big quantities, until I've realized how big problem the animal ag is for the planet and for survival of our children. Then I've learned cooking vegan and have not been hungry or feeling deprived of anything since :)
> I'll continue to eat food...and if I can't get access to it readily, I'll take it by other means
See ... animal ag will leave us scorched earth and gives us very real chance of an environmental collapse. Then people with such attitudes will fight for the scraps. I'd prefer if we'd tried to prevent such future.
> you're dismissing the fact that people need to eat food
You're dismissing plants as not being food. We eat meat for 4 reasons, and for 4 reasons only: tradition, convenience, culture, and taste. We already get something like 63% proteins and 82% of calories from plants.
> You've not refuted shit with your graphs.
Those graphs (and studies) are better than you think.