This is because the animals have eaten the nutrients for you. You can then take them in quasi-secondhand and at a lower absorption rate, however it is such an environmentally unfriendly way to take one’s nutrition that it boggles the mind.
re: farms/ranchers. (background: My grandparents were farmers, citrus farmers. They had a very small farm they worked with themselves and two workers daily, eight workers during cultivation.)
One major difference I have observed within my lifetime is that then, there were “seasons” when fruits were available and seasons when they were not. Now people expect to be able to buy any fruit at any time of the year, so many fruits travel much further than in the past to effect this.
Example: the expectations of consumers is to have strawberries at all times, but these are not typically grown here on the peninsula, thus they come from far away, however if the price goes too high, the consumers will not buy them and they will rot on the shelves. This is all to say I think it can be a much more perilous market for the food growers of today, with many more factors to consider.
I primarily “eat local” which thankfully is not at all hard to do, (1) because it is delicious (2) there’s an astounding variety of options (3) to minimize my footprint and (4) because it is cost-effective.