What burst my bubble on that idea, however, and really gave me the urge to strive towards a vegan diet, was just how completely implausible that image is. Even if your meat comes from "ethical" sources, I have three big issues:
1. Animals are typically slaughtered far short of their natural lifespans. Cows, pigs, and chickens have natural lifespans of 20, 20, and 10 years, and live 3, 2, and 0.2 years under factory farming conditions [1]. Even if the meat you're consuming comes from animals that live fantastic lives - the stereotypical image of open pastures, a "natural" diet, loving care from the farmer - those lives are almost definitely being cut short for the sake of profitability.
2. The animal products industry puts a humongous amount of effort into keeping consumers from thinking about the origins of their food. Part of this effort is whitewashing the process as much as possible. I don't feel like finding specific examples off the top of my head, but it's cases like "cage free chicken" meaning that the birds are kept in a massive, communal shed with 24/7 artificial lighting, very little cleaning, veterinary care, etc. It's very possible that even if the meat you're buying is labelled with "humane" and "ethical" terms like free-range, cage-free, etc. that those terms mean very different things than you might assume.
3. Modern livestock are bred to produce the maximum amount of product (meat, milk, eggs, wool) as possible. This leads to chickens whose legs collapse underneath them from their weight after a few months of life, cows which have chronically infected udders from the quantity of milk they produce, etc. Even if you take these breeds and raise them under "humane" conditions, they'll still have miserable lives without extensive veterinary care.
That all said, if you do indeed source your meat from sources that you have verified give their animals fantastic comfortable lives, let them live (most) of their natural lifespan before slaughter, and only raise heritage breeds that don't suffer just from being alive, then I'm all for your meat consumption - and very curious how much your meat costs!
[1] https://www.four-paws.us/campaigns-topics/topics/farm-animal...