[thinkingemote]

The sibling comments to this are truthful, we wouldn't be vegetarians but I think we would be eating more vegetables. When I was vegetarian in my youth I visited my grandparents in the country and asked them about killing animals themselves. They did have relationships with their animals and didn't enjoy doing it but its what they did. I think if you ask modern animal farmers today they would say they do not enjoy killing their animals. My ancestors did say that they ate more preserved (salted) meat and vegetables more but they had more meat in later times. The animals they raised were for occasional or special times not daily consumption.

This is reflected by a thousand years or so for most of the West with significant parts the calendar where there was abstinence from meat which for many now people would consider impossible. At most we would be periodic vegetarians, omnivores with the balance towards the vegetarian.

[globular-toast]

I think you are closer to the mark. People don't seem to realise they didn't eat meat as much back then. Like not even 10% what people eat now. To sustain the amount of meat consumption today they would have been killing every single day! In fact, it was common for families to have one pig which they'd kill around Christmas time. The pig was fed waste food (leftovers, vegetable peelings etc). They ate the entire pig, including the blood. Not a scrap would be wasted.

But I think you are also forgetting that agriculture has improved since and people aren't hungry any more. We don't need to keep a pig and feed it swill. There's so much to go around that many people are fat. It's 100% a choice to eat meat today and if that choice involved doing the killing I don't think many would make it.

[HappMacDonald]

I'm curious what the old timey protein options looked like.

I know that modern vegans have a more challenging time sourcing protein.

Old time diets didn't have the same limitations that modern vegan diets do, so they could for example lean on eggs and similar options.

But if you subtract 90% of protein sources from a modern diet, they had to have been eating something to make up that deficit and I'm always in the market for possible ideas to improve my own diet. :)

[hombre_fatal]

> I know that modern vegans have a more challenging time sourcing protein.

I'm having trouble understanding your post, maybe because you got this backwards.

Modern vegans have a trivial time sourcing protein. Tofu, wheat gluten (seitan), TVP, tempeh, and all the infinite vegetable options available year round instead of just seasonally.

[Karrot_Kream]

I will say it's not that easy to find seitan and tempeh in a lot of the West. Tofu and TVP these days seem to be everywhere. If you have an easy source for these (and don't have to make your own like seitan) be thankful. Though if you're vegan thanks for fighting the good fight :) (signed not a vegan but someone who grew up with a cultural disdain for eating meat)

[HeyLaughingBoy]

> they would have been killing every single day!

Wut? A quarter of a steer provided my family of 3 with beef for an entire year. A quarter!

[globular-toast]

Yeah but you didn't only eat beef, and people choose the same cuts over and over (like chicken breast).

[jhbadger]

>This is reflected by a thousand years or so for most of the West with significant parts the calendar where there was abstinence from meat which for many now people would consider impossible. At most we would be periodic vegetarians, omnivores with the balance towards the vegetarian.

It's important to note that in the Christian traditional at least, fish and other aquatic animals weren't considered "meat" and were fine for eating on meatless days -- which survives to this day in the tradition of Friday being a common day to eat fish (Fridays were traditionally "meatless").

[circlefavshape]

> The animals they raised were for occasional or special times not daily consumption

My mother was one of 14 kids growing up on a small farm in the West of Ireland in the mid-20th century. They ate meat (mostly bacon, home-killed and salted) cooked on an open fire 6 days a week, except during Lent