Imagine instead of breaking down food you ate even further, your body reconstructed it so you shit out a whole fish like this if you happen to have sushi that day.
That's kinda the balance between plants vs. animals actually? With bacteria in the middle. Animals die, bacteria rot it, plants grow up tall, then we eat plants, repeat. :-P We also breathe in O2 and exhale CO2 while they do the opposite. So from the plants' POV, that's kinda what we do to them?-P.