I'm not sure how you're not getting this. To produce meat, we have to feed animals. To feed a combined biomass that dwarfs all wild land animals on earth, we need to grow food with agriculture. Growing food to feed to animals and then consuming the meat results in a net loss of food as compared to just growing the food. Every step up the food chain represents enormous losses. Animal ag does not produce food. I know that is hard to accept but it's a unescapable thermodynamic reality.

We need food, but animal ag consumes more food than it produces. Grazing and other forms of "resource upcycling" cannot make up the massive difference.