It's easy to be vegetarian and eat no meat (unless you live in the far North, in which case that's a different story...). As Guest pointed out, there are a vast number of people in a great many cultures who have eaten little or no meat. North Americans and western Europeans eat a LOT of meat...far more than is actually good for them...and they do so for cultural reasons, not natural ones. They're culturally accustomed to it, and take it for granted.

I've gone for lengthy periods eating a vegetarian diet...which was great...and have likewise gone for lengthy periods eating the typical North American diet with meat, which was also just fine by me. I had to be more motivated and well organized to stick to a vegetarian diet in a society that pigs out on meat as a standard thing and takes it for granted.

In the old days in Europe the poorer people could not afford to eat much meat. Therefore, eating meat became associated with wealth, living the "good life", therefore everyone wanted more meat. When they came to North America in the 1500s and found a continent teaming with wild game...they were free to eat meat till it was coming out of their ears. That resulted in a culture that became fixated on eating steaks, roasts, meat with every meal if at all possible....merely because, all of a sudden, they could. It was easily available.

It has also resulted, in the long run, in a society that is not very physically healthy.

I am convinced from my own experience and from personal observation that most people in this society eat more meat than is good for them, that it harms their health, that it wastes valuable land that would be better used for growing crops, and that it has created a horrific slaughterhouse industry that is so awful that if most people got to witness it firsthand they would not be able to stomach eating meat any longer.

Not that eating meat is totally wrong or evil. It's not. Eating way too much meat is the problem here.

Mick, I think our dentition does not indicate that we are predators, it indicates that we, like the large apes, are omnivores. We don't have a mouth full of sharp cutting and tearing teeth as true predators do. We have some chopping teeth at the front, two very blunt and unimpressive vestigial canines (hardly suitable for a predator), and a bunch of grinding teeth in the back for grinding fruits, vegetables, grains, and whatever else we might eat. Those are the teeth of an animal that eats mainly plants, not meat, but may eat a little meat now and then if it's handy. And that describes the life of a wild chimpanzee (aside from the grains). They eat mostly plants, but will eat meat on occasion. I think that's what we were naturally made to do also. That's not what I call a predator.

Kaboom! Whole new bunch of crap to fight about. This thread has now been kickstarted back to life, to lurch on across the verbal landscape of Mudcat Cafe. Shatner shrugs and sits down in the orchestra pit to watch the scene unfold. ;-P