Cheap meat correlates strongly with cruelty, for what makes meat cheap is the assembly-line processing of animals who subsidize it for us with their suffering.

Treating animals humanely requires natural diets, open spaces for living, stopping hormones that explode body weight, humane medical procedures, no mutilations like chopping off beaks, tongues, and tails, more stringent training for caretakers and inspectors, surveillance cameras, professionals who enforce laws and prosecute violators, and so on—all of which make meat more expensive. Our desire for cheap products is often at odds with our desire to be ethical and humane.