Humans as Meat Eaters
Meat became a predictable part of the human
diet beginning around 9,000 years ago, when
early peoples in the Middle East managed to
tame a handful of wild animals — first dogs,
then goats and sheep, then pigs and cattle and
horses — to live alongside them. Livestock
not only transformed inedible grass and scraps
into nutritious meat, but constituted a walking
larder, a store of concentrated nourishment
that could be harvested whenever it was
needed. Because they were adaptable enough
to submit to human control, our meat animals
have flourished and now number in the
billions, while many wild animals are being
squeezed by the growth of cities and
farmlands into ever smaller habitats, and their
populations are declining.
The History
of Meat Consumption