Leona: If the average consumption of eggs in the United States were cu

This took me a while but here's my reasoning.

Analysis stem
- Leona basically says that if the average consumption of eggs in the US were cut in half, an estimated 5,000 lives might be saved each year.
- Thomas argues that this would mean that if people adopt this change into their diets for the upcoming 10 years, the population 10 years from now will be greater by 50,000 people that it otherwise would have been if the people did not adopt the change.
Question: how could Leona clarify her own claim and address the point Thomas made?

Approach
Which statement strengthens/provides a reason for Leona's claim while taking Thomas's claim into consideration?

Answer choices
(A) this choice doesn't take both statements into consideration. To me it felt kinda like cheating the system (picking and choosing), since this choice would "only" work if the base year chosen, for comparison, is one with an unusually low population growth. So I would eliminate this option.

(B) this choice strengthens Leona's claim by saying that if her statement is taken into consideration, we could still say that 5,000 have been saved. If 5,000 people did not change their diet they would've died, but with her consideration they would have lived, and therefore there would be 5,000 lives saved. This also helps Thomas's claim, since the population 10 years from now would be 50,000 richer (since they brought the change into their diets, and didn't die). Both statements are taken into consideration, so keep this one.

(C) this choice takes Leona's statement into consideration by saying that the estimated # of lives could be > 5,000. But this doesn't address the point Thomas made. So eliminate this one.

(D) this one seems like an easy elimination. There are other factors involved which do not provide a strong enough support, in comparison with option B. Although you could perhaps "overthink" this one, I always eliminate by the following: if I already got an answer choice that provides a stronger, or more logical, reason I'll stick by that one and eliminate the answer choice I'm overthinking/struggling with. Since B provides a stronger support + takes both claims into consideration, eliminate this one.

(E) this choice again does not take both Leona's and Thomas's claims into consideration. There is another factor into consideration, where people would have to cut their own consumption as well (aside from the eggs), this was not the intended meaning of Leona, so eliminate this one.

Answer: B