Why shouldn't you eat this?

Does a cow standing in a field have a point of view? And if it does, is this a reason for us to forgo the Whopper with cheese? If humans are equal to other animals as life forms sharing the planet, it seems permissible for us to kill and be killed, since that is the natural way of survival for many animals. If we see ourselves as superior, then do we use our position to diminish suffering and slaughter? Or do we claim our natural birthright to the top of the food chain and use animal flesh as part of our survival of the fittest regimen?

I find myself a happy meat eater. And yet like many, I have real difficulty separating the value of the ant from the cow from the human - the life force seems sacred regardless of its packaging. I refuse to be a thoughtless, hypocritical meat eater in denial of the brutal realities of factory farming and bulldozed bulls, even if our civilization willfully endoreses such blind spots. But what does my refusal get me? If I accept the bloodbath that provides my dinner, what are my obligations? Do I need to see it, participate in it, embrace it? Even that impulse can be romanticized - the killer animal instinct, the taste of blood, the unfiltered orgy of life and death.