Not sure they're necessarily burned alive, or that the hormones don't affect the taste of the meat - for other animals I've heard it said, somewhere, that pain&fear at the time of slaughtering an animal makes the meat taste worse, but I dunno.
As for looking the animal in the eyes before you slaughter it, most meat eaters let somebody else slaughter it, don't feel immoral about eating the meat, but simply avoid the moral question entirely by making a point not to see the animal being slaughtered, & not thinking about it, avoiding bad FEELINGS, not responsibility for what they're involved in. Then they look down on butchers, especially if they are Hindu or Buddhist. Hypocritical? If I hire a hitman & he does his job & I pay him, how's my karma?
As for cruelty to animals, consider the orthodox Jewish manner of slaughter animals (kosher) and the Muslim manner of doing so (halal).
I'm open to argument on all of this.
PS: I'm a meat eater & a dog lover.

@Haali: not sure that killing rats/mice, either by domestic or wild cats, is an evolutionary disadvantage for cats, but I think you're right that their propensity to do so was appreciated before they were considered cute & cuddly. Dogs were not domesticated & bred because people decided to love them either - pigs must regret not being as good at guarding tents etc. as dogs are, or they'd be loved too. Probably still be eaten though.

A lot of good restaurants. Often the problem of foreigners in restaurants here is that the foreigners don't know much about how/what Chinese dishes to order.

I don't think people bred domestic cats to be killing machines - unless perhaps to exterminate rats etc.? But I wonder if the cats needed encouragement from people to do that.

I doubt if the idea that killing animals to eat is cruel or bad will catch on before vegetarianism becomes almost an ecological necessity - then you'll see a more widespread acceptance - even beyond the huge population of Indian vegetarians - of, and self-righteousness about, the idea that life/death (and not just 'torture') is a moral issue for humans vs. animals.
@liumingke: I won't argue about neutering dogs & cats (is this cruelty?), but it's the human population that is crowding the planet, thanks to all the changes they feel are necessary (since the Industrial Revolution, anyway), which we can now see have been badly managed (pollution, global warming, etc.), not the pop. of dogs & cats, who really don't cause all that much trouble. Note that I'm not advocating the forced neutering of humans.