well, aside from the fact that I enjoy the taste of meat, the fact remains that small amount of meat provides a complete package of essential amino acids... and the reason why protein is needed in the diet... we can not synthesize them but have to ingest them. The nine amino acids humans cannot synthesize are phenylalanine, valine, threonine, tryptophan, methionine, leucine, isoleucine, lysine, and histidine.

This is why corn is usually eaten in conjunction with beans... neither has all nine, eat both together and you do get the complete package.

As for protein... hair & fingernails are almost 100% protein... but not very digestable. And many plant sources of protein are equally indigestable without some kind of processing... if not actually toxic.

Please don't take this to mean I see any value to gorging on meat... far from it. What I support is balance... take advantage of the full range of options that your metabolism can handle and try to chose options that are least detrimental to our common environment. We own 70 acres that are farmable... but not really suited to tillage. Some is woodlot, the rest is pasture that is restoring the tilth to the land and our critters provide nurishment to both us and the land. And there is still room for birds and wildlife to live and flourish. There'd be fish too, but the stream is too close to the headwaters and dries out some years.