4 ms·

Not to the extent we do today. Meat was hard to come by for most of human history.

• xienze 10y ago
  "Hard to come by" in the sense that you had to hunt for your food, yes. But to use that reasoning to imply that meat eating in humans throughout history was uncommon and to deny its role in human development is laughable.
  • heurist 10y ago
    I disagree about the implication. Even when raising cattle you wouldn't slaughter one unless you had to, either to avoid waste or starvation. Few would deny that humans have eaten meat but it was definitely much less common than it is in the US today. For instance, much of America's fascination with beef traces back to the loss of the bison in the mid to late 1800s. Entrepreneurs found great opportunity in the open plains once bison were gone and made subsequent use of it, heavily imprinting beef into our culture... So yes, we've eaten meat for a long time but not to the extent we do now. Now is an abberation, and one that comes at great cost.