Beaver [she/her]How The Meat Eaters Look When They Say These Things
EABOD25Eating meat is considered in most scientific thoughts as an evolutionary trait that occurred due to humans’ original nomadic nature. Meaning it was easier to hunt an animal for food than having to replace energy and proteins with plants. Plus at the time meat was introduced into the human diet, we would have had to compete with grazing animals, and edible plants were scarce. There are many good alternatives to meat, and I personally agree that cattle industries have gone too far in many regards. However, meat is still one of the easiest ways to give yourself the nutrients required for the human body
MaxMalRichtigEating meat is considered […] as an evolutionary trait
Correct. But these early humans had no supermarkets or global trade systems. We (and our food selection process) has very little to do with the constraints that these previous generations had. Your argument basically boils down to "it is natural for us to eat meat. This is called “appeal to nature” and is a logical fallacy (i.e. not a very good argument).
cattle industries have gone too far
Kudos to you for acknowledging that.
meat is still one of the easiest ways to give yourself the nutrients required
I do not agree, as meat is lacking in some of the essential nutrients or has a suboptimal composition of them. But even if it was the best source, that would not necessarily justify everything we do (i.e. harm other sentient beings) to get it. To give you an (over the top) counter example: Human meat would even be much better in terms of it’s nutrient composition - but no one would argue for canibalism because of that fact.
What I was getting at is that it’s harder to fight evolution and it takes time. Advocating for meat free lifestyles would most likely push different evolutionary traits in a few million years. And you have to consider cultural influences as well. Additionally, veganism is more prominent in higher income countries because of food processing and “health food” taxes cost money, so many vegan items aren’t inexspensive. Those people that are too impoverished to afford a full vegan diet would starve without meat. Also consider those places where the land can’t be fertilized and farmed. Those people as well would starve. Trade could resolve that only if they can afford it.
So this is a bit of a non sequitur, I just think it’s interesting.
We already evolved FROM being exclusively meat-eating animals. When the first land animals (our direct ancestors) enter the fossil record, there were no plants on land that were edible to them. We already evolved INTO herbivores.