Quote Originally Posted by Vivisteiner View Post
Even in recorded history, meat consumption is by no means universal. Medieval Europe, for instance, was nearly unique in that its peasant classes regularly ate meat, whereas their Chinese counterparts were wholly vegetarian.
I remember hearing that peasants generally tend to eat more vegetables than meat because they need to get the most food out of their plot of land. And by shortening the food chain they were able to eat more food.
Certainly, they ate more veges than meat. If your diet contains more meat than plants, you're in real trouble. 'Regular' meat consumption isn't the same as 'large-scale' meat consumption; a European peasant family in a moderate-sized medieval village might slaughter a handful of animals each year.