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I've long believed this to be true, so it's interesting to see this article.

I grew up in a traditional Hindu family where nearly everyone was vegetarian. When I came to the US, many of us started eating meat. 15-20 years ago, this horrified many of my cousins who stayed in India and remained vegetarian.

Fast forward to today, many of those same cousins have started eating meat in India. I read an article the other day saying the traditional Hindu vegetarian diet is falling by the wayside, and poultry consumption in the subcontinent has skyrocketed. In another generation, I expect to see a large rise in red meat consumption where the natural resource needs are much higher.

This got me thinking, can the planet really sustain another 1 billion, full-time meat eaters? If humans have such high protein requirements that can't be satisfied by a plant-based diet, isn't eating bugs the only ecologically sustainable choice?



    If humans have such high protein requirements that
    can't be satisfied by a plant-based diet
Do we have such requirements? Beans, lentils, quinoa, etc. aren't enough?


Clearly not. We domesticated those plants thousands of years ago and they weren't enough to replace meat in most diets.

Maybe it's more a question of taste than health, but for whatever reason, animal protein has and always will be a major part of the human diet.




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