vegetarianism as a "natural" human state?

these links are primarily in response to brant's question about vegetarianism. sorry, man--my hard drive crashed in december and i lost your email address (along with almost everyone else's). Oxford Journal of Medicine (2000?) Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum (2002) [this is a .pdf] Journal of Medical Ethics (2000) -->[you might be unable to access this. it's a book review of a book attempting to address the validity of deriving medical ethics from a naturalisitic biology. the reviewer criticises the books author for falling into G.E. Moore's "naturalistic fallacy" himself--attributing vegetarianism (or any other -ism that has to do with biology) to human evolutionary history.] Here's another article that you likely won't be able to get but that presents a quick and balanced perspective.

"Human Food Intake and Choice: Biological, Psychological and Cultural Perspectives" by Paul Rozin (pg. 19-20) Meat: The cultural fate of a biological super food. According to many accounts, the shift from a predominantly plant diet to a diet with a substantial amount of meat was a major feature of human evolution. Meat has an extraordinary nutritional advantage over other foods; because human nutri- tional requirements are similar to those of other animals, the meat of other animals is very likely to be a nutritionally complete food. Carnivores are not particularly susceptible to nutritional deficiencies (unless their prey is consistently deficient). Nutritional balance plus high energy value makes meat an ideal food. The two shortcomings of meat as a food were its greater potential for microbial contami- nation and the fact that it is generally harder to obtain than plant foods. In light of the great advantages of meat, it is not surprising that humans find it generally tasty and appealing, and that it is generally the favored food of humans. When it is in short supply, it is traditionally made available selectively to the most powerful members of a group. Domestication made meat much more abundant, easier to obtain, and cheaper. However, throughout most of history, meat has remained an expensive food. There is a long history, certainly over thousands of years, of ambivalence to consum- ing animals. Vegetarian traditions are associated with Buddhism and other belief systems, and were present in ancient Greece. Furthermore, across cultures, meat has been the focus of the majority of taboos (21-25). This seems to derive in large part from complex belief systems that teach the sacredness of life, and from our similarity to many of the available edible animals. Meat seems to be an almost per- fect example of an ambivalent object. In the later 20th century, in the developed world, two sets of additional culture-based concerns have added to the reluctan- ce to consume meat. One is a concern for the world and its future, in that meat is an inefficient means to provide energy to humans, in comparison to plants. The second is the rising concern for degenerative diseases, and in particular the putative contribution of animal fats to cardiovascular disease. Thus, for ecological/moral, health, and animal-rights-related moral reasons, there is an increase in partial or full vegetarianism in some parts of the developed world. Cultural concerns have compromised the attractiveness of meat, biologically sui- ted to traditional humans as a super food.

So I guess the "take-away" from these articles is that meat has always been a part of the human diet. It has always posed certain (short-term) health risks--mainly the possibility of contracting parasites or microbes unless prepared correctly. Meat confers certain huge advantages over plants, namely increased calorie content per volume consumed, that has led to cultural byproducts like seeing meat as the food of the wealthy/powerful. Vegetarianism is likely a decent dietary choice for people today because of our relatively long life spans (the high-calorie content of meat offers certain long-term risks like heart disease) and the availability of vitamins to cover nutrient gaps in an all-plant diet. But the fact remains that vegetarianism is a lifestyle choice that runs somewhat counter to our biology. For the majority of humans, a valid argument for vegetarianism needs to be based on socio-cultural, economic, or moral/religious grounds rather than biological ones. In my mind, however, the lack of a biological reason does not weaken the strength of the argument on behalf of vegetarianism. The problem really is that, in the West, vegetarianism has been linked traditionally with "progressive" or "liberal" values that eschew a common moral/religious foundation for all people and downplay most economic considerations. If you're only left with socio-cultural arguments then the relativist counter-response to vegetarianism always remains--"that's okay for you; not for me."