While either argument is reasonable, my first inclination is to be literal, actually eating the flesh of an animal while it is alive, like a predatory animal might do.
What comes to mind is how, in parts of SE Asia, there are even special tables with holes in them to support the head of a living monkey whose skull has been cracked, and people eat its brain while it is still alive.
Technically, the Hebrew version of this referred to the limbs of animals at one point, and flesh at another. It also noted that people could not eat the flesh of an animal torn from it while still alive by *another* animal.
Off the top of my head I suspect that it was oriented to the use of hunting animals to hunt other animals. But this raises the question if you have a hunting dog that just kills an edible animal, can you still eat it, vs., if it killed then dismembered the other animal?
It has both general applications (prohibition of cruelty to animals) and very specific ones.
scroll down about 3/4 to Chapter 11 Limb of a Living Animal
or try ‘aiver min hachai’ in a search engine.
in parts of SE Asia, there are even special tables with holes in them to support the head of a living monkey whose skull has been cracked, and people eat its brain while it is still alive.
Ugh! I never heard of that. God Bless America!