You're hungry and sharing a room with a barbecue, a living cow, a knife, a can of beans and a nice psychopath who's willing to murder and cut up that cow for you. What do you eat?
Nice psychopath? Hahaha.
Do we have a stove/heater (or even fire) to cook the meat? 😂
Okay, put the joke aside.
Your choice when walking into a store is always a choice of having someone murder an innocent, sentient, living being for you, or just eating something else. It doesn't even have to be beans. The plant-based choices today are HUGE.
When I walk into a store, then I do not have that kind of choice, because the meat is already there. The animal is already murdered, and the meat is already prepared (or even being roasted, served as "ready to eat"). Just because I choose "something else" (not meat) to buy and eat, someone, somewhere is still going to murder "a shitload of cows" (and many other animals) anyway. It is not like as if I would ask them to kill them.
But I know people, who breed rabbits to kill and eat them. It is their choice. If I choose a can of beans (or a roasted chicken), then that is my choice. But my choice (in this case) is not going to change other people's choice. Everyone have their own choice.
Of course I would not ask directly a psychopath, nor anyone else to kill any animal, but they will still do it. They will still transfer the meat to the stores.
Buying meat in a store is not a question of moral, but directly asking someone to kill an animal for you, while you have something else to eat, is.
That's simply not true. These animals are being killed, because there is a market for it. Sure, if you, personally don't buy one package of dead animal, not much would change, but if you and many others with you decide to only buy plant-based alternatives, leaving the dead animal packages to rot, the store will buy less dead animals next time and will look for a bigger variety of plant-based alternatives. If less dead animals are being bought, less animals will get raised and murdered, because the market will simply shrink.
So yes, the choice of every single one of us is one of life and death. If our preferences change, the products being produced will change. It's all in the hands of the consumers.