is it so wrong to eat meat?

I haven't written here in a looong time, and so much happened while I was away that I'm not sure why I'm here to write about whether it's right to eat meat, but that's what I'm going to write about anyway.  The subject has been bothering me since a couple of days ago when a good friend of mine sent me a link to a video titled "Best Speech You Will Ever Hear" by Gary something.  I had been in Boston for two months (first time being outside of Japan in fifteen years!) and was surprised to find the vegan version of everything!  I never thought so much about it while I was there; I just felt like consumer autonomy was much stronger in America with so many choices (compared to Japan where I guess would be difficult to lead a completely vegan lifestyle).  But now that I've watched a couple of videos and read a couple of articles made and written by vegans, I couldn't help the urge to write down the stuff I personally found kind of odd, just to get it off my chest.

Firstly, it really bothers me that some vegans make it sound like there is a strong link between how a human treats animals and how he would treat other humans.  Gary makes it sound like animal lovers are peaceful loving beings while meat eaters are baby Nazis (if not full grown Nazis).  If that's true, I'd like to ask why Western countries that consume more meat are generally more concerned about human rights, compared to Asian "vegan" countries.

And I don't think it's totally wrong to say that we eat meat because we're part of the food chain.  Every creature on this planet is part of the chain, right?  Given our intelligence, we found a way to farm animals (which might seem upsetting because no other animal does it), but any species with the same intelligence would have done the same, because it's an easier (if not better) way to survive.  Of course, we should make sure that animals are treated well until they are slaughtered, and I agree that there is no "humane" way to kill an animal, but we have the technology to make sure that the suffering of a cow being killed by a human is at least better than that of a gazelle being killed by a lion.

As for the health aspect, I haven't looked into enough studies to say whether meat increases or decreases human life span, but it's a famous fact that the Japanese average life span increased and became #1 in the world only after WWII when American style cuisine came into Japan and the consumption of meat rose dramatically among the Japanese population.  Also, it's commonly said in Japan that eating meat is the easiest way to make sure you're taking in certain amino acids that you'd otherwise lack if you were to only eat plants.

I realize there are farmers that mistreat animals, and this is a huge problem that needs to be addressed.  As consumers, we should always remember that our lives stand upon the sacrifice of other lives that we do not necessarily see.  But becoming a vegan?  I need to find more data before deciding on that.  It's really a shame that so many vegans put emphasis on the emotional aspect and keep showing videos of animals treated badly.  I wonder what they think about all the animals killed in labs.  I agree humans are not "superior" or "special", but does that mean we're supposed to sit on our hands and watch our fellow sick humans die because we're not superior and we're not supposed to experiment with mice to save human lives?

If animal protein is necessary to pursue better survival, the sacrifice is necessary to some extent.  Or is it human ego to pursue a longer life?  Should we simply accept a shorter life if that saves animals?  It surprises me that so many people found Gary's speech convincing.  If I had been shown the proof that becoming a vegan guaranteed better survival, I would've turned a vegan overnight.  Without solid data though, his speech was just emotionally controlling in my opinion.