Yes, very good points! I'd respond by saying that consciousness (of the advanced kind) developed for a reason, if there is any kind of Mind/Creator/Great Spirit/Order of the Universe/Almighty God. Which to me there is.

You suggest that meatlessness practiced for these reasons of consciousness (or lack of availability of meat?) could result in a reverting to a lesser form of life. Well, now, that depends on one's definition of "higher" and "lower"., for starters. Certainly, some kind of change in our brains and behaviour would ultimately occur, but nobody is going to know until it HAS occurred, just as some food historians/ philosophers/scientists have now made connections between certain changes in human nutrition over the ages, and the resulting changes in human physicality & behaviour. For starters, you might want to look at the writing of Rudolph Hauschka, or at least a condensation of some of his ideas in Food & Healing by Annemarie Colbin. Also, some of the older macrobiotic writings contain wonderful explanations of the larger, universal effects of various diets. Also the book Rare Earths by Joel Wallach & Ma Lang (though it is somewhat crude). This is a truly fascinating study.

As far as I can see, these major shifts in human eating have occurred: first, all our food was raw and wild. Then cooking was discovered, but food wa still foraged and hunted. Then, the biggie - discovery of wild grains, and the subsequent cultivation and selection of these grains, as well as animnal husbandry. Then, importation of foods so that many people began to eat food grown far away from their place of residence. And, finally, the widespread production and consumption of not real food, but food analogs - and that would be 90% of the "food" found in the supermarket and small stores also, all around the world, and consumed by the overwhelming majority of human populations.

In my opinion, the change from humanity's original diet to what now passes for food has wrought changes in our biology as least as significant as could occur if everybody just stopped eating meat. "Meat" at this point in history isn't even the issue! There are just too many un-natural factors in our world affecting our overall health.

I'd like you to clarify something: you referred to returning to a herbivorous diet. No human population has ever tried a totally herbivorous diet, only a small number of vegans here & there. So said Weston Price after all his travels & research; he found vegetarian societies, but not vegan ones.

It remains to be seen if there is a magical Something contained in meat that we can't live without. In my opinion, there are other factors, which I mentioned or alluded to in my previous post. I am not fooling myself that my not eating meat is going to Change The World, and that is not my goal in any event. I just feel sorry for the critters and I don't crave them. If some big change happens in my body-mind and I get unrestrainable urges to eat meat, I'll eat it and that'll be that.

But I'd like to end my speech here by saying that I just can't help feeling that there is something just plain wrong with a person who sees an animal being killed and doesn't bat an eyelash. Why do some people, upon finding out the truth about their "meat", just stop immediately, and others don't give a hoot, and even laugh at the animal's struggles? Only Almighty God Himself knows.