As for the argument that we have some meat-adapted features, such as certain teeth, one stomach, predatory visual systems etc., the panda and gorilla can far outstrip us on those features, yet their diet is just short of exclusively plant material. They seem to have no problems with strength and agility, either.

No matter how you suppose we came to be developed as we are today, all the evidence points to the idea that even if we ever were optimized for meat, we have moved on to plants, and retain the ability to eat meat only for those emergency situations when the plant food supply is lacking. Prehistoric discoveries keep pushing the date of agricultural society back and back. We can indeed go into a more meat-optimized mode, on which we can survive to reproduce for generations, and our predatory features become enhanced, but at the cost of years and years of our individual lifespans.

So the question is, does the quality of such a lifestyle make up for its lack of quantity? Perhaps there is a richness to the true hunter-gatherer life that would do that. But I would say that with the current state of populations, we definitely cannot all do that. And people justify all sorts of damaging addictions by pointing to the thrills involved, how their lives are enriched and made interesting by them (ever heard of the curse, “May you live in interesting times”?).

I would say that life can be every bit as meaningful and enjoyable, and more so for the more time one can live it with youthful vigor, by choosing the plant-based side of our primitive natural diet, which would be much more compatible economically and ecologically with our current population patterns, and much easier to use our naturally-endowed ingenuity to bring us all its advantages while eliminating any detriments–all with far less possibility of causing needless pain and suffering.

What I’d like to see more of in these discussions is information–*real* information for real people, rigorously scientific information, bias-controlled information (be aware of the nature of the sources). In other words, don’t make an unqualified statement that “horse meat is nutritious”. Horse meat, like all animal foods, grants certain nutritional benefits for the short term with one hand, while stealing away decades of life and untold potential for improvement in our wisdom and way of life in the long term with the other. Even though for most of its history, humanity has learned not to expect or count on those last decades of life, why settle?

I’m sure you could say the same about “settling” for a diet devoid of the beloved animal foods, perhaps it being worth a shorter life. But to me, life–the ability to continue to be in and influence this world and those around me in it–is far more precious than any particular food.

Many people will say they don’t care to live that long, considering the problems of the world that threaten to make it far more unpleasant to live in not long from now. But how many of those problems could be solved if people’s usage of water and other natural resources so massively diverted to animal-food industry were more wisely managed, so that it could much more easily happen that everyone could have enough good-quality food, and to make it easier for people to help each other, so that resentments did not have so much opportunity to erupt?

I, for one, would get much more satisfaction even if life *did* get terribly difficult, even if at my death the situation of the world seemed hopeless, to at least know with reasonable certainty that I did my best to live my life in a way that was part of the solution, not part of the problem.