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Brauerei Reichold
Posted by barry on 2017-10-17 14:49:01
I don't think that's correct 'that humans evolved eating as much large animal (red) meat as they could get their hands on... etc., etc'.   Humans evolved in all sorts of ways, in all sorts of environments.  A study of the gut (alimentary canal) shows that, in most respects, it is much the same as in all other primates, who all (with the exception of the chimpanzee and gorilla) are vegetarian.  There is no evidence that our gut is particularly adapted to eating meat, it is able to digest a wide variety of things.  However, there is evidence to suggest that simply eating meat is not good.

The exact diet of our stone age ancestors is not known but it is suspected to be largely vegetarian, with some small amounts of animal protein, particularly insects and grubs (as with most of the so-called primitive people who are still around).

In its raw state, meat is difficult and time consuming to digest and it was really with the ability to control fire and cook food that human development increased in pace.  This enabled humans to produce more easily digested food, both vegetable and meat-based, which both provided better nutrition, which helped develop the brain, and more time to do things other than scour the forest or chase endlessly after animals.  

It is probably unlikely that stone-age/paleolithic humans eat large amounts of meat, as it would have difficult to obtain with the primitive hunting implements and methods.  More likely, that consumption of anything was opportunistic, i.e. what turned up on the day.  There is no evidence either that such a diet was particularly efficient or effective.

Regarding land pollution: if the quantity of meat produced from cattle was to equal that produced from pork, we would have the same problem of land pollution.  Producing enough food to sutain human life from animal based products takes up to 5 times as much land as relying only on vegetable products.  It is simply unsustainable - IMHO, of course!
 
Followups:
                 Brauerei Reichold by JohnRatcliffe on  2017-10-18 01:39:22
                   Brauerei Reichold by barry on  2017-10-18 03:49:32
                 Brauerei Reichold by Nick B. on  2017-10-18 06:53:32