Amen to all that.

If a herd of cows is well cared for and leads a happy life? And if they're one day killed painlessly, and then feed hundreds of people?

I'm not qualified to make blanket statements of ethics. Especially when some people live in parts of the world with little arable land, but many grasses that ruminants can eat and digest.

I used to eat a lot of meat. I used to not give much thought to where the meat came from. Both those things have changed as I've learned more.

I can't change the thousands of years of cattle being bred for meat and dairy. But I can choose to avoid factory dairies that treat cows inhumanely.

Should fewer cows exist in the world? Should humans create fewer cows? Yes.

But they do exist. We can't instantly change that. And some will be used for meat, we also can't change that. So we start by trying to make more intelligent decisions, reducing society's exploitation of meat animals, and helping people understand why this is good.

Obviously this has to do with more than cows, that's just one example.