You might feel that way, but these kinds of non-sequiter only work on people who start from the premise the argument is trying to lead you to. I mean its up to you to decide what your rhetoric is for, who it is meant to work/ operate on. If you are only interested in convincing those whom already agree with you, I guess this works on you (I realize you didnt write the article)
However, as a scientist and one that actively is doing research, working with other researchers, reviewing others research, collecting field data, building and applying large models to better understand the impacts of land use and land cover, you insisting on including an unrelated to the argument non-sequiter doesn't add to your point; it takes away from it. You can still make your argument without that particular point. And the problem with injecting it, is that it frames you in as being unserious in your argument because "plant based diets being good" has no bearing on the sustainability or lack of sustainability of some other practice. Swap out "beef production" with "dark chocolate" production, and nothing about the non-sequiter's point actually changes.