There seems to be an interest on the list in the cultural and social and
environmental impact of nutrition as well as the on the nuts and bolts of
the diet, and I’m curious what others think about this. Someone here
recently mentioned the ecology of meat-eating versus cultivating grains. It
got me to thinking again about a problem I’ve had since first reading
“Neanderthin” last year with the idea that hunting/gathering is kind to the
environment while agriculture isn’t. Part of Ray’s and others’ contention
is that hunting/gathering is environmentally more sound and sustainable than
agriculture.

Here’s my question: how does this gibe with the standard Paleolithic
observation that it was in large part mankind’s efficiency as a hunter that
wiped out much of the megafauna (large game) at the end of the Paleolithic
era? If I’m reading this correctly, we became too efficient for our niche,
and that was part of what forced us to begin to look elsewhere for food
sources, such as grains and “fruits of technology”. If we outgrew our
ability to sustain ourselves on game 10,000 years ago, when the world’s
population was a fraction of what it is now, it makes no sense to me that it
is ecologically sound now, with 5 billion people populating the planet.

I agree with those here who’ve said that agriculture is environmentally
devastating. It just seems that the issue is much more complicated than
assuming that we can sustain ourselves on animal products, since according
to Audette, D’Adamo, and others who’ve written about the
Paleolithic/Neolithic shift, we seem to have proven once that we can’t. From
a nutritional point of view, I like this diet. But from an ecological point
of view, it strikes me as a much more complex topic than either vegetarian
or paleolithic ideology makes it.

So…what am I missing here? Am I misinterpreting the theories about the whole
shift to agriculture?

Sam