I hear this kind of argument pretty often. It's bizarre, because debunking it is pretty trivial. Even if we assume destroying plants is 100% equivalent to destroying animals (this is obviously a position not many would agree with), destroying animals is worse because animals require plant food to grow. And since animals burn calories that don't go directly to growth, it's an inefficient means of producing food (beef is especially inefficient).

So the choice is: destroy a plant to eat directly OR destroy an animal who needed n plants destroyed to grow sufficiently large to eat. Option A definitionally requires less destruction.