My response was to the guy who told me to “stop the foolishness” in reference to the need to eat meat. He–hoping to end the discussion there–asserting that it is an unquestionable need of all. We all need to assess our **need **to eat it. Modern American society can hardly claim need. I will give benefit of doubt to the examples that you cited. Our modern society can now eat more nutrious foods, and most can not claim need. For most Americans it is a preference of palette, not a nutritional need in the absence of healthier alternatives .
I would not disagree with you at the margin. I do not doubt that a person who knew what he was doing could devise a vegetarian or even vegan diet that would supply all his nutritional needs. I would question the ability of many to do that, however.
I pretend to no knowledge of what largely constitutes a vegan diet. I have seen some things purporting to be vegan than my wife bought just because she thought they would be good. To my best recollection, they are pretty much grain and nut based things. Sometimes fruit, sometimes honey. Sometimes sugar, sometimes listed as “evaporated cane juice”. Dairy is listed as NOT being in them; sometimes with warnings I do not quite understand, that some minor dairy contamination is possible. (I’m not sure how that happens or why it’s a hazard, but it’s not imporant that I understand.)
Since, however, meat and other animal products are a huge portion of the American diet and, indeed, that of the world, it is uncertain to me how, exactly, a shift to total non-animal products would affect the price or even sufficiency of those things properly considered vegan. Thinking about those ingredients, and trying to imagine what else constitutes a vegan diet, I am not sure of it.
I realize people who oppose meat-eating say the corn, soybeans, etc that cattle or hogs eat could be eaten by people if not used for animal feed. One assumes that, in the main, that’s true, and that those foods would be sufficient for adequate human nutrition. But it is also true that, when it comes to ungulates anyway, less and less grain is being fed to them. So, for example, a cow/calf operator now gets nearly as much per pound for an 800 lb steer as for a 400 lb steer. At one time that was not true, because they would put the 400 pounders on grain right then. Because that price differential is no longer significant, if it’s there at all, it means the rancher keeps them on grass longer, and consequently 800 lb of the end weight (1,000 or so) comes from grass alone. So, discontinuing the feeding of grain would not add as much to the human grain supply as one might guess, and furthermore, there is no real reason other than the preference of many for marbled beef or fatty mutton, or whatever, to feed grain to an ungulate at all.
If, at some point in the future, grain prices continue to go up due to increased demand or increased cost of production (which “cap and trade”, for instance, will almost certainly cause, and in a big way) or increased uses like ethanol (a bad idea in my opinion) it is possible that grass-fed beef and mutton may become the rule rather than the exception. As a cow/calf operator with plenty of grass, I’m obviously favorable to that. I would much rather get $800 or so from a calf than $400.
Interestingly, Hispanics and Muslims like goat, which has created a good market in them. Goats, of course, will eat anything nearly, and thrive on it. Some people even put them out on pastures after cattle in order to clean up the undesirable plants cows don’t like to eat. Possibly they grain feed them a little, but I can’t imagine why anyone would.
So, it seems to me there is a scale to all this when it comes to the absolute food supply. I can certainly imagine that it is wasteful to grain feed an animal starting at 400 lb through 1,000 lb. I’m less certain of it at 800 lb, and I have to believe total grass feeding adds much to the world’s food supply, since grass is useless as food to humans. Somewhere along the line there is an optimal point where eschewing meat-eating adds nothing to the food supply. Beyond that point, it decreases it.
Hogs are a different thing, since they can eat, and need to eat, about the same kinds of things people eat. There are, of course, things like brewers’ grain, millers fines and so on, that people would never eat unless absolultely reduced to it or starvation, and might be fit only for hogs.
I do not know the degree to which a significant segment of
