There exists very little rationalisation not to eat animals. The only ones I know of is that animals are sentient, so hurting them is bad. Also since they are alive, killing them is bad.

So by the same token, we shouldn't eat vegetables because odds are we harvest them while they are alive. So by eating anything, we have to justify killing. Knowing this, I just completely ignored the argument that eating animals is murder -- we murder things ALL THE TIME. I'm not arguing some sort of appeal to common practice, but that killing things is not innately terrible/monsterous.

However senselessly causing misery and suffering is bad. Though I don't actively attempt to prevent this, nor do I really care, I acknowledge that it is wrong. If eating battery eggs or beef makes me a party to this immoral practice, then I'm immoral. It's still not going to stop me from doing it though.

Because we have to eat, it follows that we must abide by the belief that "not all life is equal". Unless you're hypervegan that is...*shrug*