Plants transform inanimate matter and energy into life.
Animals digest life and make it their own.
Mushrooms, a.k.a. fungi, have somehow learned to use life directly.
They feed themselves without having to ingest their food.

Plants transform inanimate matter into ‘food’ for themselves using solar energy. Most of them. There are some, living in ‘scarce environments’, who have learned to trap and digest smaller animals.
Animals ingest and digest their food. Composed of already organic and previously living matter. Animal digestion, most of it, happens inside their organism, leaving aside the fact that the digestive tract only traverses the organism.
Fungi have given up, altogether, the notion of a digestive tract. They digest their food outside their organisms. Not as an exception but as a rule.
Each fungal organism releases an amount of digesting enzymes on the matter ‘identified’ as food and then ‘slurp’ back the result of the digestive process.

Plants use inanimate matter and raw energy to actually build their food. Which will, eventually, feed the entire living realm.
Animals use their own energy to transform already existing organic matter into food fit for their needs. ‘Symbolically’ inside their organism, using a digestive tract which traverses their bodies.
Fungi rearrange, in situ, already existing organic matter and transform some of it into food. Which is then absorbed into their organism.

All three actually build the living realm. As you have inherited it.
Transform, and enliven, what you call ‘the real world’. Which encompasses the physical one and the already living portion.

You, human-folk, have learned to use all three methods of getting food. Directly or indirectly.
Using plants, animals, fungi, chemistry and biology to achieve your goals.
You sow plants for harvest. Breed animals for the slaughterhouse. Use fungi to raise your bread/brew your beer. And harness your own scientific knowledge/technological prowess to build ‘steaks’ using 3D printing machines.

There’s a lot of similarity among plants, animals and fungi. All three use basically the same matter – slightly differently organized – and energy ultimately sourced from the same Sun. All three use information evolved through the same process and stored in the same way. DNA and/or RNA.
There’s a lot of similarity between you and the rest of the living realm. And a defining difference. You use the same matter and energy. Store initial information in the same genetic manner. Employ, for now, mostly natural processes. Borrowed from/inspired by nature. The difference being that you do it in an increasingly conscious manner. Teleologically. On purpose!

Here’s the two tiered question.
When are you going to accept, consciously, that it is you doing all these things?
Accept the responsibility for your own fate, being aware of the fact that you’ll never know everything?
Individually and/or collectively…

So liberating!