I believe it has a lot to do with how visible the suffering is. If it's happening right in front of you and you can see it, hear it, etc. then it triggers a much stronger empathetic response than if it's separated by multiple layers of abstraction, like our food is.

At the end of the day, we'll always find ways to distance ourselves from hypocrisy when it's too inconvenient to confront it, while championing idiosyncratic causes as beacons of morality to outshine the sea of suffering.