<<The argument that meat provides useful protein makes sense if the quantities are small. But the claim that "you've got to eat meat" collapses at the national level, even if the amount of meat Americans ate were not harmful.

Americans are downing close to 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish per capita per year (dairy and eggs are separate, and hardly insignificant), an increase of 50 pounds per person from 50 years ago. Americans each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the U.S. government's recommended allowance; of that, about 75 grams come from animal protein.

It is likely that most Americans would do just fine on around 30 grams of protein a day, virtually all of it from plant sources.>>

But... my breakfast sausage... my kielbasa... my bratwurst... my spare-ribs... my salami... my stuffed chops... my steaks... MY LIFE!

Take it from an Iowan: there's corn everywhere here, but almost none of it goes directly to human consumption. It's raw material for industry, especially factory-farm pork, where millions of hogs are raised in concrete or metal automated buildings. They have never seen sunlight or smelled fresh air; they live in pens on grates over their own excrement. Feeding and building temperature are automated; they see no other living creature except the one or two humans who periodically check on them. When they are shipped, they panic with the smell of air and the look of unfamiliar faces; it's not uncommon for them to die of heart failure before making it to the truck.