Oh, make no mistake, if I'm hungry anything edible is on the menu. And I've been there before so I speak from experience on the matter. I was not intending at all for this to descend into a holy war. If you want your meat, go ahead and eat it. I'm not a militant whale-hugging vegan. Hell, let's go (seal) clubbing sometime. I'm a vegan, yes, but strictly for health reasons. And for me, it works (quite well). There's no final word on this matter, and while I've got quite a bit of science on my side, nobody in the scientific community has a full understanding of how what we eat affects us (for better or for worse). And while I'm storing away for a vegan existence, I've got some edible animals going, too. I don't eat their flesh now, but small adjustments in their husbandry would increase their population pretty quickly and put meat on the table regularly. In hard times, anything goes.
I don't see the discussion as an all out holy war....I don't think I was suggesting that people shouldn't be vegetarians, or vegans or even that people must be meat eaters for that matter. Although we as a species can be described generally as omnivorous....obviously there is quite a lot of variation in what individual people choose to, or choose not to consume. Undoubtedly some people will, for health reasons, and for the health benefits that they can accrue by following a vegan or vegetarian diet, will opt to follow that path...more power to them if it's what works for them. However, not all people adopt a vegan or vegetarian diet for specific health reasons...they do so for philosophical, ethical, lifestyle reasons, and that too is a valid option as far as I am concerned, though doing so requires a discipline and the requisite knowledge in ensuring an appropriate balance of vegetable proteins and enzymes is consumed to pull it off successfully. What might, or might not happen in a TEOTWAWKI / PAW environment may be speculative, but what I can be fairly confident in predicting (judging from what I have read of people surviving world wars, pogroms, famines, etc) is that most humans will revert to their omnivorous heritage...and will eat anything, eat just about any critter, or anything that grows out of the ground (including insects and bugs if needs be). We have evolved that way...and it doesn't make sense to fight against what our species has generally found to be a successful survival strategy.
