Goto 0.
A Jain doesn’t have to purchase milk from a factory farmer.
And AFAIK even the most stringent vegans don’t brush insects from their path with every step, or avoid onions and carrots because it causes death.
All of these result in suffering much worse than egg harvesting imo. Reluctant dairy eater btw
Human beings can engage in subsistence-level dairy consumption without causing suffering beyond that already present in the reproduction cycle of cattle. They choose not to. I never said dairy farmers were or would choose to be moral, just that they aren’t required to be immoral by dairy production itself.
onions and carrots do not experience suffering. even if they did, most plants are grown for non-human animal feed. so the best way to reduce "plant suffering" would be to stop exploiting non-human animals.
Bacteria are living creatures. And your body is wired to exterminate them so that they don't eat it alive from the inside. Because the moment those defenses falter, they will do exactly that.
Consider saving your empathy for things that matter.
But, that said, a mark of being more important than a lesser being would kind of be the virtue of still empathizing with that being, even if we assume there’s a hierarchy.
And considering you and I are really just elaborate transport vessels for E. Coli and a lot of fungal spores, I’m not sure we should assume there’s a hierarchy.