Not throwing everything that’s been studied in nutrition by any means, but research areas like the gut micro biome are in their infancy, and we’ve yet to really study the effects food has on this complex system. We’ve had instances of saturated fats being painted as causing heart disease, red meat causing cancer, or sugar not being that bad for you. Each either having a perverse financial incentive to get specific results, or they used poor methodologies.
This also assumes a plant based diet is the most optimal diet for humans, which I’d disagree with, especially on the account that most plant-based diets lack nutrients that are only derived from meat based products. Yes you can supplement, but now the bioavailability is changed, and typically supplements target a single or few nutrients, and rarely has the full spectrum of what the particular food has for nutrient ratios.
For instance, what’s the effect on the gut microbiome when we use a supplement vs the nutrient “from the source”? We know there exists a difference in how our bodies react, just not the full picture of effects.
If your ethics supersedes what could (emphasis) be a more optimal life, or if plant based diet works better than meat based anecdotally, then have at it. But we shouldn’t be dictating policy or pushing for cultural changes on things we don’t have a full understanding on, especially when we don’t know the full implications of any one human diet.
Comparing meat eating to, if I’m reading between the lines correctly, hedonic pleasures of Netflix and alcohol, is fallacious, perverse, and dogmatic. I would go so far as to say restricting meat consumption on a policy level is unethical.