> Abstaining from killing animals is about the sober realization that we can have perfectly healthy and happy lives without killing animals,
But I have enough hobbies and I don't want to risk missing some things we don't yet know about. I just eat what I evolved to eat.
which makes the killing of animals to eat a needless act. because it's not needed.
However, some people have cultivated empathy for non-human beings to the point that killing an animal for an easier meal is morally equivalent to killing a human for an easier time on the road.
Some people have also recognized that a bit more difficulty in finding a place to eat is worth it to decrease the ecological impact of eating beef and cheese.
And some others still have realized that not everything should be hedonistic, and enjoy a plant-based diet that contributes to overall greater health even if it means a bit less (or rather, different - vegan food is delicious) sensory pleasure.
Shame can be a powerful motivator to be sure, but altruism and compassion are preferred, here.
So do I: plants!
I maybe too much of a individualist, so I get a little triggered when I see claims from others about the moral justification of what I should eat, what job I should have, who I should vote for... When these things that I do are not hurting myself or other humans.
Now I'm sure you could take an example of each one of these and "butterfly affect" to some example of hurting another human, but I could do the exact same thing to any one of [your] lifestyle choices.
why do you think this? I've lived seven healthy years with zero meat and am in superb physical shape. how many 30+ year olds do you know that can run a five minute mile? can you?
Plenty of things you consume create suffering, in plants, in animals, but also in humans. Therefore, why just focus on killing certain animals?
Other ways can also be more beneficial overall, such as favoring local farms which respect animals. Those exist, although their products are more expensive. In the alpine mountains where I grew up, cows and goats had undoubtedly a better life than most humans on earth.
You can also change the way to work and consume - all of this vegan ethic isn't very coherent if, as a manager, you pressure your subordinates to the maximum, and fire your coworker who you suspect that she just got pregnant.
Maybe? But until we get to the point where this is universally true, or I forget how good a prime fillet tastes, I don't see a good reason to stop eating meat.
So yes, you eventually evolved for this, but it wasn’t the dominant food source for a loooooong time.
During different points of time the ration was very different. From "mostly nuts" to "mostly fish".
Diet is one of the very few places where your genetic ancestry actually matters – although your gut microbiome, which evolves faster (https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2014.00587), may not share quite the same ancestry as your human cell tissue.
Aside from lactose intolerance what else is different between humans?
Besides these cases, which are obvious due to immediate harm, and which are the reason for laws about food labeling that mentions lactose, gluten and various allergens, there is a lot of variability between humans in the efficiency of digesting various foods and in the capacity of absorption for various nutrients.
Some people are able to eat pretty much anything, while others are aware that they do not feel well after eating certain things, so they avoid them.
I know it’s all vague delineation of where our species really started, and at which point you would no longer consider it the homo line, but for a significant part of history we were a small predator that would eat whatever was _easily_ available. Hunting animals is not easy and it’s a risky endeavour.
I’m not saying meat wasn’t part of our diet obviously, but it logically wouldn’t have been as dominant a part of our diet as it is today.
There are various bits of evidence for this, like the higher stomach acidity of humans, which resembles that of carrion eaters, like hyenas.
It is plausible that the ability to throw sticks and stones was used initially for scaring other predators and make them abandon their prey, and only later, after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, it became accurate enough to be usable for hunting living animals.
The ability to use stones to break the bones and eat the parts inaccessible for the carnivores who had killed the prey, i.e. marrow and brain, which are rich in hard to get nutrients, e.g. omega-3 fatty acids, is also presumed to have played an important role in the development of a bigger and bigger brain.
It is likely that the gangs of humans acted in a very similar way with the packs of hyenas, which acquire much of their food by scaring away from their prey the other predators, e.g. cheetahs, wild dogs, leopards and even lions. Moreover, similarly to humans, the most important ability of hyenas is not speed, but endurance when pursuing a possible prey that is tired or weakened, e.g. by wounds. While hyenas rely on their big teeth to chase the other predators, humans have relied on their ability to throw things at a distance, for the same purpose. While humans are quite bad at running, jumping, climbing or swimming, in comparison with most mammals, their throwing ability is unmatched by any other animal.
And if you look at our closest relatives chimpanzees, they also hunt without using tools. Humans and their ancestors probably ate whatever they had available, including meat.
No one is pushing for these changes you suggest and to take a stance suggests a social disorder or mental illness.
Some may prefer to do it for personal pleasure, but also ease of life, or cost, which allows them to have time for things that they believe are also moral. Such as taking care of their children, working, and so on.
> [...] So did all other carnivores
So many hoops to jump through to understand what the hell you're talking about, just to land on what could charitably be called the dumbest thing I'll read today if I'm lucky.
Eat some berries and nuts
"Paleo" diet doesn't even include that much meat in it