Ta33, I am familiar with those arguments put forth by R. Manning in that article you posted for us, and they are not at all new to me. I actually agree with most of it.

But, you see, or I hope you see, no one eats (or should eat) accordingly to a set of abstract principles based on what our ancestors ate, because - for one thing, only - humans have irreversibly changed in the millennia since hunter-gathering. We have changed physically and we have, I hope, changed psychologically. That some of us have an almost lifelong revulsion to animals being killed directly for our own consumption must not be ignored. Many, many others have no such revulsion, and crave meat. I would not stop them from doing so even if I could.

Your bolt-in-the-head-to-the-buffalo presentation is starting to wear thin. Do YOU watch your buffalo being thus dispatched? Inquiring minds want to know! Would you want to be gently led into a slaughterhouse to receive a bolt to the head in order to feed some higher form of life? Yes. No. (Check one.) You are assuming that the buffalo (or other animal) does not know what is to come and therefore does not suffer in the least. Not so. The only way to do it humanely is to sneak up behind the animal where it is grazing in the field and shoot it very quickly. Even then, you are separating its spirit from its physical form in a quick, shocking way and this cannot be a good thing for its spiritual journey. It is said, I don't know if it is true or just the propaganda of people who mindlessly revere aboriginals, that some tribes understood this, and apologized and prayed for the animals that they hunted and killed. The one who raises animals specifically for killing or who eats the animals where someone else has done the dirty work, has never been known to do any such thing, at least not in any widespread way that I know of.

Why do I say that hunting is more humane? It is not more humane, it is less inhumane. The animal senses danger and is prepared for the chase; this is why we say it is a wild animal. (I acknowledge with sorrow the messy job that some hunters do.) The domesticated animal has no such preparation. Gol darn it, killing a domesticated animal in a pen (or a large field) is just too damn easy; it is the act of cowards. It ain't sporting - don't you get it?

You rightly note that "vegetarians contribute to a great many animal deaths". Yes, we do. But no meat eater consumes only meat; they eat it in addition to plant foods, thereby contributing even more to animal destruction and suffering. Only a fool would suggest that humans can exist without killing any sensate, ambulant being, for heaven's sake. Because we, or at least I, anyway, have somehow along my evolutionary road, developed a sense that animals want to continue their lives just as much as I do, I do what I can to reduce the directly-for-me killing. No, this does not automatically make me a more moral or altruistic person, as you correctly stated. I could actually write an entire essay on why altruism and socalled "morality" is highly overrated, by the way!

Re the shortage of humanely (according to your definition only) obtained flesh, why not go the route of the good folks in Soylent Green? It is true that some of the complete protein (heh, heh) in those wafers may have been obtained violently by the government, but a large portion came from people who arranged their own humane suicide, accompanied by lovely scenery and music of their choice. Totally voluntary, no psychic or physical pain. Regardless of what you or I eat today, human society is headed for the edge of the falls, and I can certainly foresee the kind of total social misery depicted in the that film, can't you?