The intense thing is, each number is an individual with thoughts, feelings, fears and pain. Remember, if you don't want to be a part of those numbers, you can pick a different sandwich filling.
Philosophical take: Every day animals kill other animals to survive. We can't change that. Why should humans be forbidden to kill & eat animals?
Adopting the moral code of animals, as justification for killing them, while simultaneously leaning on our supremely advanced intelligence to separate us from them so that we don't feel bad about it. Ironic.
We have higher-order thinking as well as choice - can use those to choose not to cause terrible suffering to sentient beings where we don't have to.
As a human, I can live a perfectly happy, healthy life without eating animals. Statistically it’s healthier, cheaper, and has no downside other than taste (meat tastes good, no argument here).
So ethically, how is eating meat any different than torturing and killing animals for pleasure?
That’s completely false: a life without bacon is less happy than a life with bacon, and thus imperfectly happy.
> So ethically, how is eating meat any different than torturing and killing animals for pleasure?
The former involves deriving pleasure from eating flesh; the latter involves deriving pleasure from inflicting pain.
Not all that different to an animal, though.
Exactly 0% of my enjoyment of eating meat comes from inflicting pain to animals.
Other than health, taste, tradition, habit and convenience, what has meat ever done for us?
But we don't need meat for health.
American Dietetic Association
"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes."
NHS UK
"A vegetarian or vegan diet can be suitable for everyone, regardless of their age."
British Dietetic Association
"[I]t is possible to follow a well-planned, plant-based, vegan friendly diet that supports healthy living in people of all ages, and during pregnancy and breastfeeding."
> Meat is a package of pre-processed vitamins, minerals and energy sources.
In addition to saturated fats, cholesterol, and common additives like nitrates and preservatives, meat consumption can also entail exposure to antibiotics, hormones, bioaccumulated pesticides and herbicides, and ethical concerns related to cruelty and mistreatment in the meat production industry.
> Other than health, taste, tradition, habit and convenience, what has meat ever done for us?
If everyone on Earth adopted the American or European diet, we would require more than five Earths to feed everyone [0]. Animal agriculture is already the leading cause of deforestation [1], biodiversity loss [2] [3], and water pollution [4]. Our current agricultural practices are pushing over a million species towards extinction [5].
Switching to plant-based diets could free up an area equivalent to the combined size of both Americas [6], allowing us to reforest it and promote biodiversity recovery. By reforesting this vast area, we could sequester enough carbon to potentially reverse climate change [7] [8] (assuming a simultaneous phase-out of fossil fuels, of course) [9].
This approach represents the only sustainable way to feed a population of 10 billion [10] while reducing our agricultural land requirements from 4 billion hectares to 1 billion hectares [11]. Animal agriculture is one of the major culprits pushing six out of nine Earth boundaries beyond safe levels [12] [13].
So ... it does a lot.
[0] https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/sustainability...
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation
[2] https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/our-glob...
[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/
[4] https://blogs.ubc.ca/makingwaves/2017/02/07/cows-pigs-and-po...
[5] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01448-4
[6] https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land...
[7] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/8/08...
[8] https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal...
[9] https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector
[10] https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/917471
[11] https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
[12] https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2...
[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries#Nine_boun...
Exactly 0% of why you eat animals changes the pain inflicted on animals.