We're told to practice kindness at all times, but no-one really does. Are you kind when you eat ham? Are you kind when you eat beef? Are you kind when you treat animals more horribly than we used to treat slaves? Think about it next time you settle down to a burger.
Animals treat each other naturally - "red in tooth and claw," as Tennyson puts it. They certainly don't institute systematic ongoing mechanized holocausts of one another, especially if, like humans, they can survive perfectly well without eating meat.
