Thank you for your answer and apologies for the late reply. I'm currently
travelling through Europe by train and it's a bit hit and miss when I will have
time to sit down and write a proper reply.

To summarise your comment (please correct me if I'm wrong): we should not eat
animals because a) they're conscious, b) they do not want to be killed and
eaten, and, c) we should apply to animals the same rules we apply to humans.

If I haven't misunderstood those- then I don't think that (a) is a
particularly strong justification. On the one hand we know of societies where
cannibalism was normal and even mandatory. For example, one of my favourite
books of all times is "History of the conquest of Mexico" by Bernal Diaz del
Castillo, a conquistador who campaigned with Hernan Cortés [1]. He reports the
cannibalistic rituals of the Aztecs. It's a prime example of humans having no
compunctions to eat other humans, consciousness and all (and offer their
hearts to the gods, and sell their other parts to the town market, in the case
of the Aztecs).

(c) is also not very good justifications because of cannibalistic socities: if
a society accepts that humans can be killed and eaten, then it treats animals
in the same way as humans if animals are killed and eaten in that society. Then, there is the example of Buddhist societies where the belief is that
the souls of humans may reincarnete as animals. Literally, eating a cow might
mean eating your grandfather or your grandmother (reincarnated) and you know
that you, yourself, may come back as a farm animal and be slaughtered and
eaten. Still, nonhuman animals are killed and eaten, and karma applies to everyone equally, human, animal, or plant.

As to (b) I think that even mordern societies accept that there are
situations where the will of the individual is subsumed by laws and even the
right to life is not absolute (the US, the leading Western democracy,
exercises capital punishment). We incarcerate people who do not want to be
incarcerated, we separate parents from their children who do not want to be
separated, we even kill people who do not want to be killed.

Yes, we have rules against cruelty to animals. But those laws, I think, never
cover putting an animal to death in an acceptable manner that minimises its
suffering when the purpose is to eat it. Pretty much every human society
throughout history has accepted that at least some nonhuman animals may be
killed for food. Restrictions are placed often on what animals can and cannot
be killed or eaten (Hindus won't kill cows, Muslim and Jewish people will not
eat pork and will only eat animals killed in a special manner, etc). However,
there is always some class of animals that the majority of people will eat
unquestioningly.

In the article above, I note, for example, that the subject is killing and
eating cows. Not, say, chicken, fish, insects, sheep, pork, horses, dogs,
cats, snails, deer, ducks, etc etc. In fact, some of those animals (insects,
in particular) have been offered up as an alternative to killing and eating
cows, although not by the author of this article as far as I can tell.

It seems to me then that the justification you offer is not perhaps the one
envisioned by the author of the article, or perhaps, a certain viewpoint that
the article represents. For this veiwpoint there seems to be a particular
issue about eating spedifically beef. I am not sure I understand this but,
beyond the obvious commercial interest in marketing a product as anti-beef
eating, there also seems to be a heavy focus on a particular demographic,
which I think is in particular a US demographic.

Finally, personally I don't accept your three justifications. I understand
full well that the animals that have died so that I may eat their flesh are
conscious and do not want to die. I do not feel there is anything unethical in
killing an animal to eat it, because this is how eating works: you have to
kill something to eat it and that something rarely agrees to be eaten. I
myself will one day die regardless of whether I agree to it or not. I may be
killed, and I may be killed and eaten (e.g. by a shark when I swilm in the
sea; or even killed without being eaten in that case). I don't think killing
and eating other animals is human exceptionalism. I think hyman exceptionalism
is responsible for the idea that eating other animals is wrong: no other
animals seem to have such rules; why should we, of all animals, have them, if
not to pretend we're not like other animals?

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernal_D%C3%ADaz_del_Castillo#...

Edit: I should say I do feel compassion for the animals that have died so that I may eat their flesh. For that reason, I make sure ot never throw meat away. The poor animal died so that I could eat it so I may as well eat it.