Okay, the OP hasn’t posted in 2 weeks. Which one of you jerks ate him?
Animals eat meat. Our biology has evolved to eat meat as part of our diet.
But the ‘get by’ part of your post speaks to the answer. Our social structure has ‘evolved’ around eating meat, while hunting gathering vegi’s and insects could make a diet base, the social aspects of civilization is based on the big kill. No one would be happy in a society where one just ‘gets by’, we like to thrive, and that involved animal meat.
As for domesticating and raising animals for food, we also ‘domesticate’ and raise plants for food. So really no difference.
If you want to get into the argument that we should not farm at all and just hunt/gather, your problem is beer. People like it enough to form a civilization based on farming, so it looks like a non-starter.
Well, it’s not milk. 
AIUI The underpinning of the OP was that farming/ranching and consequently eating sentient creatures is morally wrong. The Merriam-Webster Definition of sentience is:
1 : a sentient quality or state
2 : feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought
I would argue that plants have a form of sentience. Trees will warn others through chemical aerosols of invasive insects or fire. Cite Cite
Cite
So essentially the Jains are right. You cause suffering to other life forms by your existence, and my assertion is that it’s more important to be mindful of what and where your consumption occurs. FWIW, I do eat meat and I try to be mindful as I cook of where it came from, as well as the vegetables and grains on my plate. To eliminate meat because they have eyes and a brain misses the point entirely. Every forkful of soy or spinach you push into your mouth leaves you just as guilty of sentient murder as my well teated free range strip loin steak.
Now you could also argue that eliminating humans will alleviate the issue, but life feeds on life and humans or not, that will never change.
You can’t put the two into a “numbered” rating. You just…can’t.
“Which is better, chocolate or vanilla?” Your answer will only reflect your beliefs, not the intrinsic truth.
But, to be honest, I’d rather die than be raped.
I’d rather take our dogs for a hike in the woods. I know that wasn’t an offered option, but I’m willing to pay extra.
That’s non-dairy dairy.
Best answer yet!
This is not a question of binary absolutes - that if one does not personally eat meat, then one must therefore bear responsibility for all meat that is eaten by all other organisms in the world. Instead it is more like an Aristotelian golden mean, being the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency.
There are many levels at which humans have set the bar in terms of the ethics of meat consumption, from Jains who will wear a face mask to avoid accidental ingestion of insects, to those that still eat dog and horse, which would be considered taboo in our culture. Until recent times, cannibalism was also practised in certain parts of the world. I don’t agree with either of these extremes, although I appreciate that Jainism is a noble cause, albeit taken to a ridiculous extreme, and so have respect for its sentiment, which is the value of life.
The Universe is, as far as we know, amoral, but humans are not alone in having a concept of morality:
A properly-trained dog is estimated to be able to understand between 100-165 words. Many say that pigs are even more intelligent, yet our culture kills and eats them while decrying the consumption of dog as barbaric.
In my opinion, the reason people eat meat in the modern 21st century western world, with the cornucopia of food from around the world readily available in almost any grocery store, is purely down to the perceived pleasure they gain from doing so, in combination with some degree of cultural entrenchment and also cognitive dissonance, and that none of the other justifications presented hold water. The killing of animals for pleasure is unethical and immoral, in my personal judgement.
While I don’t believe eating meat is necessary at all, I’m interested in the concept of synthetic meat, and the ethical and moral questions it will one day make more acute. What if, say in fifty or a hundred years time, it is possible to “grow” synthetic meat that tastes better (through optimization of conditioning), is cheaper, less damaging environmentally, and healthier than meat harvested from living animals? (Let’s suppose that synthetic meat consumers are shown to live longer and have less health problems than living-animal meat eaters).
If synthetic meat was better in every respect than living-animal meat, then what would be the reasons to keep killing animals for food? I get the “natural vs artificial” angle, but if this is only a concept with no actual real-world repercussions, then attempts to justify the killing of animals for food would surely be further eroded. In any case, if synthetic meat did become a viable food source, then perhaps simple market economics would be a driving force for those who ignore or disagree with the moral or ethical perspective. If one was able to eat the finest steak available to humankind every night for a couple of dollars, then it would take a lot of the thinking out of the equation.
Vegetarian cooking is still an emerging cuisine and there is a lot more progress to be made as globalization reduces the localization of foodstuffs and instead makes them available on a worldwide scale. I think a lot of meat-eaters think that vegetarian cuisine is basically what they currently eat, minus the meat, whereas there are a lot of meat-like foods like tofu, paneer, quorn, nut roasts, dairy-based foodstuffs like paneer or halloumi, and more. Even a good vegetarian pasta dish or pizza can feel as substantial as a meat dish.
I’ll also add that, in addition to my love for a dog, there were a couple of videos I remember watching in my teenage years that made an impression. One was a video of slaughtering cattle in an abattoir. I think many people retain a wilful ignorance of the process of how an animal grazing in a field becomes a food item bought in a grocery shop, and would recommend that meat-eaters become better informed by watching a video of how it is done. The other video was of a pod of whales being corraled against a shoreline and speared by men on boats, turning the whole sea bright red. Both of these videos left me feeling I had watched something deeply sinister, repugnant and morally wrong. Here’s photos/video of whale pod killing and you can probably find abattoir footage on Youtube, although I don’t feel like searching for it.
I also believe that the non-consumption of meat is beneficial for one’s spiritual well-being, which is why I don’t regard the Dalai Lama highly in this regard, since he eats meat.
To end on a lighter note, here’s a short Troy McClure educational film about meat consumption/production from The Simpsons, which I think covers the subject well.
Counterpoint, a short video from the Arrogant Worms, Carrot Juice is Murder. I did a tour of the Burns plant in Winnipeg when I was in high school and what I saw put me off meat for about 6 months. I have since realized that no matter what, something has to die for me to survive. At the end of the day, I have to live with that fact and choose to find meat proteins that are raised and killed humanely and to minimize my consumption of same. I realize I may be in the minority in that respect, but that 's the hill I choose to die on.
Still weaseling though…
I don’t eat meat due to “willful ignorance”, or even unwillful ignorance.
I’ve seen movies of abattoirs, both horrific and not-so-bad. In addition, I have killed and butchered my own dinner on occasion which is an unpleasant and messy job but so are a lot of other chores.
Vegetarians who are convinced that meat-eaters who somehow or other learn the truth about how animals becomes meat on the table will be converted to vegetarianism are like Christians who are convinced that reading the Bible will convert the reader into a Christian. It will convince some, but far from all.
What educating myself has done is give me an incentive to not waste meat, and to not eat excessive amounts.
I, too, know where meat comes from. I have killed fish and small mammals, and I’ve seen photos and video of large meat animals being slaughtered. Perhaps as a result, I have strong feelings about minimizing the suffering of meat animals. But I still eat meat.
As for “fake meat that is better in every way”, “better” is a matter of taste, and tastes vary. So, I think farmed mussels are better than wild mussels, but not everyone agrees. (And I think wild salmon is better than farmed salmon, but again, not everyone agrees.)
That being said, if artificial meat is produced that is very similar to natural meat, and is also much cheaper, I expect the market for natural meat to mostly go away. I think most people would prefer vat-grown muscle cells to parts of a killed animal, especial with a economic incentive.
(Note that fake meat currently on the market tastes nothing like meat. There may be a few people with a poor sense of taste who eat their food heavily spiced who don’t notice the difference, but most of us do. And while I like many vegetarian sources of protein, like most beans and foods like falafel, fake meat doesn’t taste very good. I rarely eat it.)
You’ve also neatly summarized the “justifications” for vegetarianism - the pleasure obtained from a position of perceived moral superiority, cultural factors and cognitive dissonance (it’s OK to kill and eat plants, but not animals etc.).
I wouldn’t wax too eloquent about the high morals of other species. For instance, chimpanzees are highly territorial and not only attack and kill other chimps, but sometimes eat them. Dolphins are known to attack other dolphins and kill each others’ babies.
I support humane treatment of other species*, whether or not it’s in connection with consumption of said species. Vegan/vegetarian moralizing is not only tiresome, but the logic behind it is highly dubious.
*that said, I reserve the right to terminate with prejudice those plants in my garden that persist in being sickly and/or failing to perform. On some level, they may know this. I had a patch of Shasta daisies that bloomed poorly, and one year I was thinking persistent thoughts as I walked by that I was going to yank them out if matters didn’t improve. Lo and behold, they flowered abundantly in succeeding years. This season they’re substandard again, so I may have to go back out there and “encourage” them once more. 
I’ve hunted, killed, and butchered wild game. I’ve slaughtered and butchered domestic stock and fowl. I’ve eaten them all with great enjoyment. Not sure where this vegan idea that “if only you knew where meat comes from!!!11!” got its start. Meat that I’ve seen to myself is, if anything, better than meat I bought in a store.
You’re being a tad pushy here, guy. I answered the question.