I’ve always figured that, given the ratio of humans to wildlife in modern America (e.g. roughly 10 people to every 1 white-tailed deer), there’s no mathematical way that wild meat could comprise a substantial part of the meat consumed by Americans. But if people reduced their overall meat intake considerably, I guess it could comprise a larger proportion.

Yes, toxicity is an important issue. When I started fishing again, it saddened me to realize how thoroughly the poisons we’ve produced (in local waters, methylmercury from combustion of fossil fuels and waste west of here) have infiltrated the food web. The state health advisory on fish isn’t reassuring, especially for mothers and children. Likewise, cadmium buildup in deer liver would encourage me to steer clear even if liked the flavor, which I don’t.

By the way, lest anyone get the impression that I’m some kind of food saint, I ought to mention that I most emphatically ain’t. While I eat very little soy and don’t buy industrial meat at the grocery store or eat at McDonald’s, I do, for example, eat wheat—given my Italian heritage and my wife’s, pasta and bread remain part of our diet. I also drink coffee and tea, cook with olive oil, etc, etc. I like to procure food locally, being mindful about what I eat and how that impacts earth and animals, but I’m no purist. So no one should hold their breath waiting for me to launch some American dietary satyagraha.

A concept like Meatless Mondays is kind of hokey, but it makes a point about this very thing. Curbing meat consumption — no matter what the source of the meat — doesn’t harm anyone in my view, except maybe the big industrial farmer. I think that type of choice benefits the small farmer, since when people treat any food as precious, they tend to be more invested in how it’s acquired. I believe this is the point you and Holly and others have made here about what hunting has done for you — made the food sacred, in a way.

I’m not a big fan of Michael Pollan, but even he, the neo hog hunter — talks about using meat as a condiment, not as a main course. If people did, in fact, treat meat this way, they wouldn’t be hunting except as Tovar does, for subsistence. They wouldn’t have to buy nearly as many products of the slaughter from farms. And, if one isn’t allergic to eggs the way I am, unfortunately, a person could substitute a fair number of meat-protein meals with a source like humanely-raised eggs (issues of what constitutes “free range,” notwithstanding). I grew up in Europe in a family of limited funds, and meat was, indeed, a precious commodity. It certainly wasn’t served everyday, let alone at every meal.

One thing we haven’t addressed here — which further complicates the diet issue — is toxicity in the food chain. If you opt to eat some animal products but want to stay lower on the food chain — say eat just mollusks (you know, the nervous system argument) — you’re most likely ingesting large amounts of industrial contaminants and mercury. At the opposite end of the food chain, you have top-level eaters whose tissues contain the very same contaminants, magnified. Large fish — well, most fish, actually — bear this burden, too. You all know about commercially raised meats and antibiotics and so forth, which is one of the reasons some of you hunt. If one is eating for health (and that should obviously be a reason to eat!) ideological choices are always problematic and rarely conflict-free in terms of reconciling one’s heart to one’s plate.

But the reason I keep coming back here is that I appreciate most of you seem to be grappling with those very same issues, from a different point on the spectrum.

As I recall, Gandhi was thinking of his diet in spiritual and religious terms, rather than environmental terms. And his reluctant dietary shift back to milk was based on the belief that it would enable him to regain health and return his full energies to his campaigns for freedom and justice in India. That was his way of measuring the value of his own health.

Here and now, we might have other ways. But we do necessarily include human health in the “moral calculus,” as you put it, of our food choices.

As a counter-extreme to your panda example, it could be argued that I would do the least harm to the world by eating nothing but grass from the clearing around my house—or by eating nothing at all. But I won’t ever do that, because I value my health, just as I value my family’s health and even a stranger’s health.

Perhaps a vegan diet can, as you say, be “perfectly healthful” if “carefully managed.” I’m not sure if that’s true for all or even most people in the long term. I’ve seen plenty of examples where people did not do well as long-term vegans. I didn’t do great myself. Was that just a lack of careful management? I’m not so sure. And if thriving on a vegan diet requires extraordinary management measures, does that bring such a diet into conflict with the value we place on our health? For me, I think it does.

Good points, all.

Like you, I know plenty of reasonable, non-fanatic vegetarians and vegans.

And, yes, Gandhi’s dietary changes do sometimes seem chaotic, and were rooted in some goals that might not resonate for many modern Americans—the suppression of libido, for instance.