Quote:
Originally Posted by tore
When a meat diet has been a tremendously important part of our evolutionary history with consequences for our whole biology which includes stuff like brain size and the shape of our bodies, how can you say it's unnatural? And you say we come from places "optimal for growing vegetables". Meat in our diet happened a long, long time before agriculture. It's a matter of a dietchange that happened some millions of years ago (meat eating) compared to something that first happened some thousands of years ago (agriculture).
Vegetarianism was not an option for the average healthy human not long ago. In most places on our planet, such a diet would lack essential nutrients. Being a vegetarian is feasible in modern societies today because you can have vegetables grown on every continent on your plate to fulfill your nutritional needs. Needless to say, it's not long ago that most couldn't. In Norway (where I'm from), that would've been a real problem up until not very long ago at all, probably easily measurable by decades.
I think you should reconsider what you think of as natural or not.  |
All that you say is correct, Tore, based on my understanding of human history and modern society. It will be interesting to hear Riloux's response.
You chilly grassland people in Norway wouldn't have fared well without some sort of animals in the diet. And even if early Norwegians had just raised cattle and used cow's milk, I don't think people have bred cows yet who can give milk without being pregnant and giving birth...and so one always ends up with a growing cow population. This, of course, leads people to want to kill and eat some of the cows (or calves).
A big disincentive to following vegetarianism in countries that have grassy hills that aren't suitable for cultivation is financial, since people's options for earning a living would be severely decreased if they couldn't base their livelihood on raising animals and killing them. I assume Norway doesn't have much arable land? I think I recall you said it didn't.