Many of our readers say they love horses — but not for dinner

Many of our readers say they love horses — but not for dinnerA taste for the flesh of large mammals has devastated entire ecosystems
since nomadic pastoralists conquered the agricultural cultures that birthed
civilization. Today, as in millennia past, we quibble over which, acceptably,
may be eaten - seldom concerning ourselves with the sustainability of the
practice of harvesting protein from sources requiring enormous quantities
of fresh water and nutrients to produce. Beef, mutton, industrial pork - and
horse-meat - offer shamefully poor returns on natural resource investment.
The same attitudes that shape our taste in land-harvested protein influence
our seafood preferences. We farm salmon where shrimp, prawn and many
others would return more protein per investment. Far better still - both as a
dietary alternative and as a return on investment - are plant proteins such as
Plantain/Amaranth with protein yields similar to most meat - or the agrarian
mainstays like Lentils. Much as preferring fickle cotton over linen, ramie and
hemp has undermined the long-term prognosis for natural fibers so too has
our preference for foodstuffs undermined probable global health outcomes.
Of all the deadly sins the one that science and statistics confirms is the one
we sublimate most the others into (with the obesity & other health problems
to show for it) is gluttony. The gluttony of some begetting the starvation of a
couple of billion others. And that loosing those horrific apocalyptic horsemen.

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