The point is that, if the alternative is massive global starvation, we can give up on eating most meat so that that food can be more efficiently be eaten directly by humans instead. And you don't have to give up any of programming, iphones, cars, computers, boats, houses, clothes, etc., to do so.
I for one have been eating meat for less than 20 years. Lots of people (not only individually, but culturally) live mostly vegetarian. There is no problem with it.