The societal role of meat—what the science says
Peer Ederer, Frédéric Leroy
Animal Frontiers, Volume 13, Issue 2, April 2023, Pages 3–8,
https://doi.org/10.1093/af/vfac098Published: 15 April 2023
Eating meat has been the aspiration for an enjoyable and nutritious meal in most cultures and during most times for at least as long as there are written records, and likely far back to the earliest days of our genus some 2 million yr ago. Nonetheless, history also indicates that there has been frequent and prominent advice to abstain from meat or even prohibit its consumption, for cultural, spiritual, nutritional, or economic reasons. The societal debate around the value of meat is neither new nor has it been dispassionate. Science has been a participant in this debate from early on as well. While Pythagorean communities abstained from meat based on reincarnation theories, Aristotle came to the reasoned conclusion based on everything that he knew about 2,300 yr ago: “The tame animals are for the use and nourishment of mankind, while the wild ones, if not all, most of them, are on account of nourishment and help, in order that clothes and other tools come to be from these. And therefore, if nature does nothing in vain or without a purpose, it is necessary that nature made all of these on account of humans” (Aristotle, Politics, 1256b10-22). It is therefore fair for every generation to reask this question considering the best and most recent scientific evidence available: should eating meat in sufficient portions be a common and important part of the standard human diet?
This Special Issue of Animal Frontiers aims to provide a synopsis of answers which represent the currently available best scientific evidence. The answers are given on major considerations pertaining to eating meat, including its impact on human nutrition and health, environmental sustainability, economic affordability, and ethical justification. To this end, we invited a broad group of leading international scientists to interpret the scientific evidence for the benefit of making it accessible to the communities of policy makers, industry practitioners, journalists, common consumers, and fellow scientists alike. Our request of the authors was not to reflect on the most granular levels of current scientific argumentation on each of these topics. That would have been impossible and would never do justice to the quality and intensity of these debates within the scientific community. Instead, we asked them to derive what can be robustly learned and has most societal significance, from the scientific evidence as it currently stands.
As guest editors of this Special Issue, we wish to emphasize our trust in the value of scientific debate, and in the ongoing questioning and challenging of what may appear as common knowledge or as an established paradigm. Science progresses by asking questions more so than by providing answers. We take Karl Popper’s epistemology as a guide, so that at best, we can know what is not true. Similar principles characterize this Special Issue: we appreciate and ask for debate on how to interpret the scientific evidence; we decidedly reject torturing the data until it confesses to a desired outcome; we want to neither suppress the inherent complexity of the subject; nor do we want to hide behind it.
https://academic.oup.com/af/article/13/2/3/7123474
