You are the one with ridiculous reasoning. By your logic the value of a human life would be equal with that of a plant. Do you seriously not see the difference between abusing and killing something that has the ability to think, to varying degrees, and feel pain (an animal) and killing something that completely lacks any cognitive ability including the ability to feel pain (a plant/fungi)? You should take a course in basic biology.

Are you telling me the life of a goat and a human are equal in value? Pain is just a way of the body telling us something is wrong so if plants don't have that then there is nothing wring with their limbs ripped apart? Just because they don't feel it, it is okay to rip and chop them into a thousand pieces. That is absurd.

I just reduced my red meat intake tbh

I'd say Vegetarian is more manageable to stick with, since vegan means you eliminate all animal products from your diet. 

By your logic, I would assume yes, "we don't get to decide which life is precious." Personally? No, as absurd as it may seem to you I value human life over that of animals and animal life over that of plants. 

That is part of it yes, but that is only part of it. As I mentioned, you should take a basic biology course, the differences between life in the kingdom plantae and the kingdom animalia are quite significant. Just focusing on the morality of the subject, the scientific consensus is that plants lack consciousness (awareness) in the way even the most basic of animals do. As I mentioned before plants lack brains, nervous systems, and even basic organs, the way they have life is completely different from that of animals. Animals clearly (lots that we eat startlingly so) all have some degree of consciousness, ability to feel things (from the basics like pain to complex emotion like fear and sadness), the ability to think, and intelligence. Plants, on the other hand, completely lack these things. If you can't see the difference between the two and why one is a lot better than the other, yikes.

Also, if you do care about the well being of plants, going vegan makes the most sense. I titled the point "least amount of suffering and killing", and that would stand true even if plants somehow did have the things mentioned above that animals do (which they almost certainly don't). Vegans actually cause a lot less plants to die than meat eaters because guess what? Farm animals eat plants and a lot of them. World wide over 50% of grains are fed to livestock and in the US 70% of all crops are, not to mention we would have a ton more free land for plants to grow freely as the grazing lands would be freed up. Also along those lines animal agriculture is reasonable for 91% of Amazon deforestation. That is a lot of plants wasted to feed you and others (especially since that food could to help end world hunger, back in the 90s the US alone could feed 800 million with the amount we grow and I'm sure it has only grown since then).

No. By my logic me and my species come first. I am not a cannibal or psychopath like you assume. I am simply stating that we are animals and we eat to live. I don't understand why eating goats should be any different from eating carrots. And we cannot get rid of livestock even if all of humanity becomes herbivorous because goats and sheep would still exist and keep causing deforestation even if let them be. They might even multiply and cause other problems because this is the cycle of life. Goats eat plants wolves eat goats and humans eat both plants and goats. It is what it is. There is no higher morality in eating plants only is what I am saying. Its all the same its a hoax a fraud an unstable illusion of higher morality and it lacks substance and cannot stand up in a logical debate. It has almost no merit and saying well one has consciousness while the other is just there and cannot move so..... yeah! Is not good enough. I might argue that plants are more innocent since animals can move and defend while plants don't have that ability. Its like killing a baby compared to killing a teen I.e the animals. I don't care if my food is sentient and can talk. It is still part of my natural food cycle and I won't change that over such a foolish reason or explanation.

Sheesh. I'm not thinking you are some cannibal or psychopath, stop being so defensive and assuming. Yes, I personally think it is more moral to eat only plants. That doesn't mean I think meat eaters are horrible people, I just disagree with them and hope that they may some day see things my way. I'm sure you think a number of common things are immoral, but does that mean you think everyone who do such things are by default evil and psychopathic? Hopefully not.

Anyway, with that out of the way. Wait, so is the reason you think human life is more valuable than the life of other species simply because you are one? It's not the most common standpoint, but that would explain your argument. 

I think you need a major paradigm shift. Judging by your wording it sounds as though you only see animals as mobile plants that feel pain or something. This is not the case, the sense in which animals and plants are "alive" is fundamentally different in almost every way. I don't want keep going around in circles, but let me reword a question from my past post, can you seriously not see the difference between how say a dog or cat and a pineapple plant are "alive"? If you can't, well, just know that the majority of people can.

As for how veganism still makes sense even for someone with your unique viewpoint. Livestock would almost certainly would not multiply if we didn't eat them. In a modern farm environment the livestock is impregnated beyond their natural limits to meet the demand for meat and other products. Should the demand for meat go down the number of cows, pigs, goats, chickens and so on will drop from their current ridiculous levels as will the waste of crops, land, and water. Also it isn't the animals themselves causing the deforestation of the amazon, it's us humans clearing the forest to make grazing land for the livestock due to the currently increasing demand for meat. It's a horrible unneeded waste.

It is your believe that eating plants is more moral than animals but I could argue that like I feel sympathy for my species you feel sympathy for your kingdom or perhaps mammals I don't know. The only thing non living is a virus otherwise even bacteria and fungi are living. And other than my food and animals and beings that harm me I try to avoid killing anything be they ants spiders etc. Senseless killing is what I am against and I hate deforestation. And studies are going on on plants feeling more than we presume they do. If feelings is a standard by which I judge what to eat then sure your argument makes sense, but otherwise not so much. If I was a lion then I would have no problem killing goats or humans as well. If I was a goat no problem eating grass and plants. Perhaps if plants belonged to our kingdom you would feel differently. Anyway let's agree to disagree.

About health, a complete diet is the healthiest, but compared to typical diet of most rich countries, red meat consumption should be reduced a lot, fish increased and in preserved meats we should completely avoid nitrites, and accept nitrates only if they are combined with ascorbic acid or ascorbates (vitamin C and its salts, also used as antioxidants to preserve foods better), that prevent them from producing in our body carcinogenic nitrosamines (which they already produce a lot less than nitrites), reduce sodium and increase consumption of fibres. Basically one of the ways we could make our diet a lot better, healthier but still very tasty, could be combining Mediterranean, Chinese and Japanese diets, but also other combinations can produce healthy and tasty results.

 I agree completely.