First of all, thanks for taking the time to calculate this for the rest of us! I was wondering about this myself.
One observation: Peter Hurford’s standard American diet doesn’t include shrimp and wild fish caught to feed aquacultured fish. That’s the vast majority of all animals killed. ACE, on the other hand, does, which yields 262-406 animals killed per omnivore per year instead of ~30. This higher figure seems to be the basis of the 3.4 animals saved per $ for THL.
If we correct for this, we come out at 262⁄3.4 = 77$ or 406⁄3.4 = 119$ to save as many animals as a vegan does per year compared to an omnivore. (That’s 167x to 259x as much as the 0.46$ estimated above, which can’t be accounted for by wild fish and shrimp. Why does this method yield such different results?)
There are many uncertainties though, e.g. does veg advocacy actually reduce people’s shrimp and fish consumption as much as their meat consumption? Or do some substitute fish and shrimps for meat (some ‘vegetarians’ still eat fish!)? That would completely turn the calculation around.
First of all, thanks for taking the time to calculate this for the rest of us! I was wondering about this myself.
One observation: Peter Hurford’s standard American diet doesn’t include shrimp and wild fish caught to feed aquacultured fish. That’s the vast majority of all animals killed. ACE, on the other hand, does, which yields 262-406 animals killed per omnivore per year instead of ~30. This higher figure seems to be the basis of the 3.4 animals saved per $ for THL.
If we correct for this, we come out at 262⁄3.4 = 77$ or 406⁄3.4 = 119$ to save as many animals as a vegan does per year compared to an omnivore. (That’s 167x to 259x as much as the 0.46$ estimated above, which can’t be accounted for by wild fish and shrimp. Why does this method yield such different results?)
There are many uncertainties though, e.g. does veg advocacy actually reduce people’s shrimp and fish consumption as much as their meat consumption? Or do some substitute fish and shrimps for meat (some ‘vegetarians’ still eat fish!)? That would completely turn the calculation around.