I disagree. There are a lot of nutrients (mostly protein) that, without meat, require us to rely heavily on nuts and beans. A dependency on those requires a large amount of additional effort for the consumer. Nut allergies are intensely common besides, having to depend your entire muscular structure on the number of beans you eat would be both very ineffective and would have a number of negative results.
Point being, meat is the most efficient way to get a lot of nutrients, and you can't declare that everyone can't eat it because you may someday discover that it's intelligent. The future is broad, we might find out that plants are actually the intelligent beings on this planet. Does that mean we should all starve ourselves now on the fear that that may happen in the future?
Everything has protein in it. I've gotten over 100g in a day without trying and little to no nuts. Your body will naturally combine different types of amino acids to form complete proteins. You just need to eat a variety of foods and you'll be good to go. The issue with a vegan diet is eating enough calories, not getting enough protein. In fact, many people in the US eat too much protein which is very bad for you! It's easy to undereat accidentally on a vegan diet because you have to physically eat more. Hard to complain about that though.
And effort, in my opinion, isn't enough to justify eating animals. Think about the specific efforts you go through to prepare raw chicken: you have to wash your hands in between handling it and your other foods so you don't risk contaminating them with salmonella. Way more effort than my dinner, where everything can safely touch!
Getting sufficient nutrients on a vegetarian diet is not difficult. It requires no particular thought unless you're doing a lot of exercise and need a huge amount of protein, but even then, it's pretty easy to get unless you want to avoid eggs, milk, soya, tempeh, nuts, mycoprotein, beans, lentils, protein supplements, etc.
Iron is more difficult in theory, but no other vegetarians I know have actually had a problem with it.
As a vegetarian, iron is something I haven't had a problem with (I know this from the blood iron levels they measure when you give blood). I cook with cast iron, which apparently increases the amount of iron in cooked foods [1].
I believe you may be misinformed: Calorie for calorie, broccoli has more protein than a sirloin steak. As stated in the other responses pretty much everything has protein in it.
Additionally, the only vital nutrients in meat are b12 and iron, both of which are available elsewhere (lentils are great for iron & supplement is available for b12)
Actually, calorie for calorie is not a valid counter. Per wolfram alpha, you'd have to eat 4.0kg of broccoli per .41kg of steak (average steak size).
Apart from that, I would cede to your points about the b12 and iron, but if you want calories to sustain you, meat is definitively the most efficient way to go about it.
Yeah, you have to eat more quantity-wise (but really, not that much more). Personally, I love eating, so I don't complain about it :) Eating many times during the day is healthier for your body anyways.
I make a vegan sandwich with 30g of protein and about 700 calories. Add a protein shake and a side of chickpeas and you're pushing 90g. It's shockingly easy (and healthy) to load up on vegan calories if that's your goal!
Point being, meat is the most efficient way to get a lot of nutrients, and you can't declare that everyone can't eat it because you may someday discover that it's intelligent. The future is broad, we might find out that plants are actually the intelligent beings on this planet. Does that mean we should all starve ourselves now on the fear that that may happen in the future?