>>6341708For something to live, something else must die to feed it. While animals do have much higher cognitive functions than plants, plants do have a chemical reaction alerting them of damage that can be described as pain. They grow better when they listen to music, and often die without the help of other beings to help them pollinate further lines.
Some plants themselves have rudimentary digestive systems, such as the venus fly trap, used for catching flies and other small insects. In essence, no matter what you do, so small potential of something greater will perish to feed you.
Instead of becoming vegan, you could instead try to minimise the suffering of animals via your diet; buy from known sources, get your eggs from free range sources, and campaign for better labelling on how food is reared.
Alternatively a solution would be to exclusively eat the byproducts of an animal/plant, something that it produces without dying, and products made from it. This would mean exclusively fruits, eggs, dairy etc, and with no meat and no vegetables where the source plant might die in the harvesting.
Despite what others may tell you, being an omnivore isn't evil, it's literally the healthiest way to live for a changing environment. Veggies often have to take iron and protein supplements and often downplay this, and people who eat burgers and steaks too often end up fat as fuck. If it ever gets you down, just think how it might be kind of amusing if we make first contact, and the first race we meet is a bunch of carnivorous tree people. They'd go down well.
