you’re still eating more of them by eating animal products…

not necessarily. we mostly feed livestock parts of plants we don't or can't eat. so while spinach is human-edible, the spinach fed to chickens is not handled in a way that keeps it safe for human consumption. by feeding it to livestock, we are conserving resources.

Fair enough. Turns out while every single news article reporting on the plant scream study talks about it as “pain”, the scientists themselves made no such claims. Merely calling it “stress” in plants.

Thank you for giving me a reasonable response that made me look into it further and educated me - the way I feel like would have been beneficial initially instead of what actually happened in that vegan group.