I struggle to understand how someone can acknowledge the cruelty of factory farming and turn around and eat a burger,

Because cruelty is inherent to food production in most places in the west, to one degree or another. Even for non-factory farmed meat, there’s going to be some cruelty at the very end of an animal’s life, since event he most compassionate slaughter is still slaughter. But even going past that, to plant-based foods. in the US at least we rely on labor abuses in order to have groceries that are affordable. The migrants that pick oranges in Florida (or, picked; DeSantis is trying to eliminate undocumented immigrants, and the result is that farmers are having a very hard time finding labor) work in terrible conditions for horrible pay, conditions that no person protected by labor laws would ever accept. But we, as a society, are aware of this, and accept that this cruelty is necessary for us, because we won’t–or can’t–pay for produce that comes from co-op farms.

We–all of us–pick and choose where we put our energy.