You don't have to torture animals to eat them. Assuming advances in technology and energy we could get to the point where a hypothetical farmer could raise animals in luxury. As tech increases the luxury will increase. If animals are indeed sentient, farms would essentially transform into happiness factories generating and funneling new minds into earthly paradise.
If your ethical code is a variation of 'reducing pain and increasing pleasure for all sentient life' this would be orders of magnitude more good then the Peta option of turning them loose to die in the wild or never exist. It would be far more ethical than even artificial meat.
Heck from a strict cost/benefit analysis it may be one of the greatest moral triumphs mankind has ever given the universe.