Rick wrote:
Evidence put forth by scientists from varying disciplines (that snookers a
conspiracy) has shown that both historically, and with contemporary
hunter-gatherers, the meat-eating ratio is in the neighbourhood of 70% ...
--------------------------

There is no consensus by scientists that the historical ratio was 70%.
Loren Cordain (AJCN Vol. 71, No. 3, 682-692, March 2000) estimated that
"hunter-gatherers consumed high amounts (45-65% of energy) of animal food".
 This figure was critically appraised by an editorial in the same journal by
Katherine Milton, who wrote:

The hunter-gatherer data used by Cordain et al (4) came from the
Ethnographic Atlas (5), a cross-cultural index compiled largely from 2
0th
century sources and written by ethnographers or others with disparate
backgrounds, rarely interested in diet per se or trained in dietary
collection techniques. By the 20th century, most hunter-gatherers had
vanished; many of those who remained had been displaced to marginal
environments...

Finally, all the hunter-gatherers that were included in the Atlas were
modern-day humans with a rich variety of social and economic patterns and
were not "survivors from the primitive condition of all mankind" (6). Their
wide range of dietary behaviors does not fall into one standard
macronutrient pattern that contemporary humans could emulate for better
health. Indeed, using data from the same Ethnographic Atlas, Lee (1) found
that gathered vegetable foods were the primary source of subsistence for
most of the hunter-gatherer societies he examined, whereas an emphasis on
hunting occurred only in the highest latitudes.
..

Hunter-gatherer societies in other environments were doubtless eating very
different diets, depending on the season and types of resources available.
Hayden (3) stated that hunter-gatherers such as the !Kung might live in
conditions close to the "ideal" hunting and gathering environment. What do
the !Kung eat? Animal foods are estimated to contribute 33% and plant foods
67% of their daily energy intakes...

The !Kung and Hazda, dismissed by Cordain et al as "unrepresentative,"
differ from many hunter-gatherers listed in the Atlas precisely because they
have been relatively well studied dietarily-in both cases, plant foods
contributed the bulk of daily energy intake...

There seems little doubt that many hunter-gatherer societies had a high
intake of animal protein (and animal foods) by present-day standards.
However, this does not imply that such a dietary pattern is the most
appropri
ate for human metabolism or that it should be emulated today. Past
hunter-gatherers did not have unlimited dietary options but had to make the
best of whatever was available in a particular habitat...