It used to be, that if you wanted meat you had to go kill and butcher the animal yourself, and meat was, also, reserved for the sick.

However, now people are disjointed form the process of agriculture and eat meat like there was no sacrifice of an animal involved which is pure ignorance and a sign of extremely misplaced priorities.

Of course its better to kill a plant than an animal for food. An animal has a brain, its more similar to a human than a plant. A plant doesn't feel any pain, and is, generally, the perfect food, not that plants should be taken for granted.

Now, I didn't know we needed bees so much, but if we do, then its better to treat them better than we treat plants since bees are a higher form of life and more similar to animals than plants are similar to animals. And of course animals are more similar to us. So, by this logic, if we kill the animals thoughtlessly, then, our own lives are at risk because killing animals when plants are available presupposes no appreciation for life which is similar to ours.

That's the long and short of it.