The thing you're describing is the exact reason *[the user you meant to reply to] wrong

If you fed all those crops directly to people instead of livestock, there'd be no loss of energy/nutrition/calories to the middle steps(the livestock digesting the crops and turning it into meat, the livestock needing to drink gallons of water of its own, the massive industrial water requirements of the slaughter industry in general).

Imagine you have the option of giving someone a thousand bucks cash, or using it to buy them gift cards(with many fees and surcharges along the way) and jewelry to hawk.

In this analogy, the plants are the cash. The meat is the inefficient luxury goods it would be absurd and unsustainable to base an economy around.