One pretty consistent moral among societies is that needlessly causing harm is considered wrong. Outside of lab grown, its impossible to acquire meat without grievously harming an animal. Further, the vast majority of our meat is NOT gained by hunting but instead by factory, and the conditions of meat factories are appalling and horrific. So yes, if we CAN get the nutrients we need without the consumption of meat, that is the most moral way to get our nutrition met. All that being said, even today, being able to meet all nutritional needs without any form of animal cruelty is an incredibly privileged position to be in, and we arent quite at the stage where its fair to judge others for not doing so

(edit: and I say this as a meat eater, meat is fuckin delicious and I dont want to give it up. I'm personally banking on lab grown meat becoming an economical option, at which point we have removed the ethical muddiness of it)

(Edit 2: Lmao, I ruffled the feathers of a lot of meat eaters who've likely never actually had to kill any if the animals they've eaten. I have, I still eat meat. Reality is messy, fucking own it)

And some civilisations practised human sacrifice. "We did it in the past" isn't really an arguement.

Our ancestors hunted wild animals

Industrialized meat production is horrible and wrong

That's the part that is wrong

Let a pig have a happy life, then kill it. There is no need to force feed it in a coffin size pen for its whole life.

It's only wrong if you believe hurting other living things is wrong, it depends on your upbringing / mental framework and how you relate those between different species.

But I believe most people agree that the current way we mass produce meat and how we treat these animals is like a dystopian endgame. If humans were treated like that by a higher intelligence that would be extremely disturbing and cruel. We just accept it as we place the priority on a steak on our plate.

It is how it is, everyone is ignorant or a hypocrite in some parts of life. Good or bad are only subjective perspectives. But if you look at the harm we cause to other beings with eating meat and in what mechanistic way, that might be one of the things in 100 years we look back at and just can't fathom.

That's an incredible weak argument. Our ancestors did all kinds of stuff which lead to societies prosperity. Doesn't make all of it morally right.