Meat eating and health : benefits and concerns
Meat as a source of food energy
High-quality protein and human growth
Carnivory and civilizational diseases
2. Meat in human evolution
Hunting wild animals : meat in human evolution
Meat consumption during the Paleolithic period
Extinction of the late Pleistocene megafauna
Hunting in different ecosystems
Wild meat in sedentary societies
Traditional societies : animals, diets and limits
Population densities and environmental imperatives
Long stagnation of typical meat intakes
Avoidances, taboos and proscriptions
3. Meat in modern societies
Dietary transitions : modernization of tastes
Urbanization and industrialization
Meat in the Western dietary transition
Transitions in modernizing economies
Output and consumption : modern meat chain
Consuming and wasting meat
Making sense of meat statistics
4. What it takes to produce meat
Modern meat production : practices and trends
Meat from pastures and mixed farming
Productivity efficiencies and changes
Meat : an environmentally expensive food
Animal densities and aggregate zoomass
Changing animal landscapes
Intensive production of feedstuffs
Water use and water pollution
Toward rational meat eating : alternatives and adjustments
Meat substitutes and cultured meat
Protein from other animal foodstuffs
A large potential for rational meat production
