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.
Tonight I had dinner at my grandparents house and they are not used to having a vegetarian around. It's always funny when people act like its going to dramatically change the dining experience. It doesn't. I asked my grandmother, "what were you planning on having"? She said, "potato's, salad, steak, bread and butter". I said, "okay I'll have that sans the steak". Really the majority of the food we eat in the US isn't meat aside from the giant slab in the center of the plate. Most of our "side dishes" are vegetarian.
I have a cousin that has given up a nice career in corporate marketing in Chicago to move out to rural Illinois and work on farm. He's pretty damned happy with the decision.
[edit] Molly the cow was properly coined "badass of the day" when she made her heroic escape from "hell".