[elcritch]

Most mass produce meat are loaded with antibiotics and live in pretty terrible and unhygienic environments. Having meat that's not loaded with antibiotics and mixed with unsavory parts of the animal during butchering too.

Just visit a factory farm sometime. They are pretty cruel. Even if it's removing that cruelty for the sake of our own humanity makes sense to me. It's interesting to me that the Old Testament prohibition on "You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk" appears to be intended to avoid this sort of wrongness/cruelty. As in taking something that's fundamentally meant to provide sustenance and perverting it to cook the child it's meant to nourish seems pretty messed up right? Even if the goat itself doesn't care (though I think they do have some level of sentience). The effect isn't huge, but you can imagine that it produces a bit of desensitization to things that are important to our own humanity.

One thing with traditional family farms is that you gain a connection with the animals. Yes, you'll eat them but you know the cost of doing so. Modern factory farms completely remove that.

Of course, I'll continue eating regular meat due to convenience. That said, I do eat more substitute as it becomes more available.