>>197002 (OP)
>when the latter has been demonstrated to also have consciousness and feelings
Demonstrated is a big exaggeration, they don't even have a brain. Post your best evidence for that.
>it's more cruel to eat plants than animals, because plants are completely innocent, while animals eat other animals or plants
In a way that's true (excluding carnivorous plants I guess), but consider that most of the crops are fed to livestock, so in the end consuming meat essentially leads to more plant deaths. Also, if we want to get quite autistic, don't some plants have antimicrobial properties? And the microbes, likewise, can kill too. In the end, no matter what living things do while alive, some other living things will have to perish. Mother Nature is cruel. The copium (but not really, since it's true) that you can be on is that, thankfully, most living beings don't have a consciousness, they don't have feelings and don't feel pain. Is a piece of grass on the ground able to care if you step on it? Not even bugs care if you tear off one of their limbs arguably:
https://libreddit.northboot.xyz/r/askscience/comments/a2fv96/can_bugs_feel_pain/
>>197005
Is eating meat really necessary to be healthy? Don't people also eat a lot of low quality meat too? Proteins can also be found elsewhere. Besides, I doubt many fat people that exist are vegans.
>>197061
Communism is an ideology that supposedly focuses on the working class, not animals. But production inevitably kills some animals, even just building a house probably kills even thousands of insects. But I don't think most vegans live like Diogenes, with the bare minimum, so I guess the question is "where do we cross the line between what is necessary and not"? I don't think there isn't an answer that isn't arbitrary, honestly. Those who blame capitalism for animal violations or pollution are kind of coping - communism also inevitably commits such violations (other examples: they had meat in the USSR, and the USSR was a greatly polluting country, look it up).