Vegetarian and animals rights

[Eman]

Assalamu alaikum brothers and sisters in Islam,

I have recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who is a Non-Musliam and Vegetarian about the crulity against animals.  As a vegetarian she argued that ' humans can survive without meat and that it is NOT in our nature to hunt, therefore we should be vegetarians otherwise we're inflicting crulity upon these animals'.

I tried to explain that Animals are Allah's creation for the pleaseure of human beings 'to be utilised as food, cloth, transport...etc' by my point doesn't seem to get across. 

my question is:
is there better way i can explain this matter? please feel free to provide your inputs.