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These aren't hard and fast rules. A civilization growing doesn't mean they automatically eat more meat. And having more population doesn't mean we automatically eat more meat. It's cultural and can be changed completely at any stage of development. And you even make another assumption that feels off, that less meat means less quality of life. Come on! None of these are a rule.

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On average people want to eat meat but cannot afford it when they are poor.

Meat consumption thus increases with economic development (even without going into what might be deemed excessive consumption, which is a fuzzy concept outside of health considerations). That is a fact worldwide (see for instance link I included in another comment).

Regarding quality of life, my point is that if we are forced to abstain from eating what we want (then not ravelling as we please, then live in smaller houses, etc) because we have to preserve resources then very clearly we are reducing our quality of life. And the root cause is actually population because what ultimately drives consumption of resources is population.

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