My view is a little more complicated I guess.
Human activity has created a situation where total abstention of beef or dairy products, will result in a complete collapse of millions of acres of grassland habitat. This is because the cattle grazing on those habitats are a surrogate for a keystone species that was foolishly eradicated (now only in small reserves in terms of range and population) in the 1800s, Bison. To effectively eliminate beef from the diet, a massive breeding program to reintroduce bison, (and subsequent removal of all obstacles to free migration of the species, so that they can do their ecological function-- which means removal of highways, fences, and the like) which would be economically suicidal.
I view that what would actually happen, is that without the financial obstacle to exploitation, (and given the extreme costs of properly reintroducing the necessary keystone species to preserve it anyway), economic forces would actively conspire to systematically destroy those habitats in favor of the newly imposed demand curve cashcrops-- Soy, Rice, Potatoes, etc.
Beef is a whole trophic level removed from plants. The law of entropy applies. Beef will never be as efficient as a quality direct crop; but that is only part of the reality. The other is as above-- the beef are useful both ecologically and economically, such that economic value can be safely extracted from preserved habitats, and creating economic incentive to preserve those habitats-- naturally and without government oversight. That does not happen very often, and it should be protected, not demolished because of squeemishness over big brown cow eyes, and cuteness. (if you will pardon my bias there.)
If you want to *personally* abstain from beef for ethical reasons, by all means, do so. I have no problem with that. Just do not try to proselytize without giving consideration or thought in your rhetoric to what the outcome consequences of that proselytizing would do-- It would result in habitat destruction of hundreds of species, many unique to the area and found nowhere else. I insist upon this, because failure to do so creates a hypocritical situation; The main thrust of the argument is to diminish animal suffering-- but the outcome is suffering on a geometrically larger scale.
Feedlotting is a perverse situation, however. It exists exclusively because of greed, and poor management decisions systemically in society. It produces a large number of social bads, contributes mightily to many outstanding "could end the human race" circumstances, is needlessly cruel to the animals in question, etc.
Feedlotting should be what is abolished, not beef production. The two are not synonymous. Feedlotting has emerged as a financial/economic "solution" to the problem of "Not enough grassland, but WAAAAAY MAD profits for beef, YO!" That solution causes more problems than it solves-- It solves only one problem-- people want more beef.
The position of satisfying that want is not supportable with science. Medical science shows that excessive beef consumption (especially the fatty beef that comes from corn feeding in a feed lot) contributes to a wide number of outstanding public health concerns, such as heart disease and antibiotic resistant bacteria. Ecological science shows how feedlotting damages water tables, causes soil erosion, and contributes more intensely to water supply mismanagement and rising greenhouse gas emissions.
The ideal solution, IMO, is for beef to exist in the market, produced exclusively through grass-feed operations. This will result in a very high unit price for beef per pound (as it will directly compete with dairy for the same resources, which are finite), which will depress consumption (because people wont be able to afford it in excess), markedly reduce emission and water use consequences, and do this while simultaneously preserving the surrogate keystone species populations (cows) needed to sustain those habitats AND bolstering the economic opportunity costs needed to suppress the destruction of that habitat for some other cash crop (like soy, corn, rice, or potato.)
That is, was, and will remain my position on the matter.