I watched the Racing Extinction documentary aired by the Discovery channel last November, and learned this: If every American skipped meat and cheese for just one day a week, it would be the equivalent of taking 7.6 million cars off the road.
One day a week? I can do that. I wish everyone would do that. One day a week.
Why do I consider it ethical to continue eating meat?
If you watch this short video, you’ll learn that there are some species of corn and cotton plants that when preyed upon by caterpillars, emit a pheromone that draws parasitic wasps in to kill the caterpillars. Plants don’t want to be eaten either! Moreover, the plant does not have to be damaged. They will emit this pheromone when played a recording of the sound of caterpillars eating leaves! So they are “hearing” this, and “thinking” in terms of self defense. They will NOT be led like lambs to the slaughter. 
Some points from the documentary:
They have been able to prove that plants can learn. An example: the Mimosa pudica, or Sensitive plant, will close if touched. So they dropped one from a height of 15cm, and it closed. After being dropped 4-5 times, it quit closing. It would still close if shaken or touched, but it “learned,” and “remembered” that falling would not hurt it - for weeks after.
More startling, though, is what the acacia tree did to the kudu. One or two kudu was not a problem. But the herds? During a drought, the livestock kudu preyed heavily on the acacia. And died. In large numbers. The acacia had started producing large enough amounts of tannins to kill the kudu. Upon further studies, they learned that the affected acacia were also putting out large amounts of ethylene gases, which in turned caused all the acacia trees downwind to produce large amounts of tannin, whether they were being eaten or not.
A direct quote from the documentary: plants can, “Learn from the past, plan for the future, and work together for the benefit of the species.” So there are no Judas sheep in the plant world.
They are still doing studies, and the documentary is only 2 years old. I tend to be a bit skeptical, and that is the reason for some of my quotation marks. Some of it might be woo. On the other hand, no one believed Galileo, either.
My thought is, if nothing wants to be eaten, then I might as well share out some of that to the animal kingdom. Because steak is delicious, and fried chicken is fucking good!! 
This is hilarious. Gave me my first good laugh of the day, and I thank you.
Last Glacial Maximum, I am going crappie fishing tomorrow!! I absolve myself of all guilt in this matter, based on The Other Waldo Pepper’s post.