French Parrot wrote:
 I am still veg for philosophical reasons (don't want to hurt animals),
> aesthetic (squeamish), and ecological.

As a 34 year philosophy student and current board member of the Dallas
Philosophers Forum, I eat animals for all the same reasons you do not!

1.  Nothing hurts like extinction.  Without the meat industry, billions
of animals would be out of a job (and their lives).  Those left would be
slowly starved as their grazing habitat was rapidly transformed by
agriculture and the ecological damage inherent in its' practice.  Of
course the vast majority of wild herbavors (most in their first year) are
killed by wild predators, a process that is much more cruel than any
found in commercial meat production.  BTW, did you know that every year
domestic cats in the U.K (a little country about a third the size of
Texas) kill over one billion birds.

2.  Being squeamish will prevent you from enjoying one of the biggest
joys in life - reproduction.  Not only will you miss the joy of
childbirth, (which was dicey even for this daily hunter and butcherer of
animals), you will also miss important aspects of child rearing
(Gray-Hawk is in the final (oops) phase of potty training).  Your chances
of having a child will also be diminished by your refusal to perform
squeamish sex acts (do you think Americas most famous lover, Monica was
squeamish?- I think not).  Promiscuous people should be remain squeamish
as AIDS is a real threat and reproduction requires commitment to be truly
sucessful.

3.  Meat production, which takes up most of the land used in food
production, although not sinless, is more ecologically sustainable than
plant production.  Long after the land has been worn out by the plow and
irrigation, cattle may be raised.  If done properly this can even improve
the land.  The topsoil that was on the Great Plains (4 ft. 100 years ago
now 4 inches after a century of grain production) was produced by
billions of hoofed animals that far outnumbered the animals we produce
today.  BTW, Paul Shepard (the father of deep ecology) is an avid hunter
as well as a falconer.

Those promoting the vegetarian lifestyle have included some of the
greatest propagandists of the 20th century (Hitler, Mussolinni, Stalin,
Pol Pot etc.). Several great philosphers of the past ( who shaped the
mess we currently live in) were also of this ilk.  Those who held
hunter-gather beliefs have been eliminated by methods that make the
current religious wars (Bosnina, Rawanda, Sudan etc.) seem tame and
"ethnic cleansing" humane.

Perhaps you should seek knowledge directly from Nature by living with the
land through hunting, fishing, gathering wild foods or even birdwatching.
This is not to mean living "on" the land as Thoreau (that famous
philospher produced by the industrialzation of New England) or his modern
counterpart Kossinski did in a prefabricated shack eating rice and beans.
Perhaps you will see a different path than transending (ignoring)
industrialism or blowing it to pieces.

I will remain confident that as long as the world has more rabbits and
rats than chickens, my family and my hawk will never go hungry!  I also
deeply feel those "humane" attitudes towards others that are most often
found in carnivorous pack animals and not in herbavores ( it's every
sheep for himself when the wolf comes).

Ray Audette
Author "NeanderThin:A Caveman's Guide to Nutrition"
http://www.sofdesign.com/neander