Cannibalism I would agree would be immoral barring an extreme circumstance. Consuming the flesh of another species however when our digestive is built for it would not be.
Our digestive 'tract' (assuming) is also capable of digesting human flesh, but being able to digest human flesh wouldnt justify consuming human flesh, so I fail to see how the ability to digest animal flesh justifies needlessly killing animals. To add to that, our physiologically does not allow us to simply digest meat; more often than not you have to cook meat before it can be digested and most of the nutrients in the meat have been broken down and losed in the cooking process. On the other hand, we're capable of pulling fruits out of trees and vegetables out of the ground and consume them raw. There are other physiological traits that make us more less omnivorous than most omnivores, but those can be brought up in a later discussion.
Some nutrients our bodies require are hard to find in small quantities of plants were they may be abundant in animals.
It might be hard to find anything if you're looking for it in "small quantities". "It's hard to find potassium in small amounts of banana, it's hard to stay hydrated with small quantities of water, it's hard to stay well-nurished with small quantities of food". Hopefully I've driven the point home.
You're capable of easily obtaining all required nutrients in a plant based through "normal quantities" of fruits vegetables, grains, and various other things. It you may find hard to find such nutrients outside of meat if you've never made an effort to do so.
Creatine is one example of a nutrient our body produces that we find available in animals that i'm not even sure we can find in plants let alone enough to benefit our body. Fat is another crucial nutrient where animals are the most efficient source.
Unless your body building, you don't need to consume extra amounts of creatine to maintain your health. You're capable of being healthy and maintaining an average muscle mass with the amount creatine produced by your body. But, if you are into weight lifting (comme moi), you can easily get extra creatine from protein powders. I personally use VegaOne which I definitely recommend, but stay away from chocolate flavor. Tastes like shit.
Also your comment earlier where you used "our being civilized" as a proper reason for us to bypass the killing of animals for nourishment is invalid. We are in no way civilized... We are as barbaric as we've ever been. We are just more advanced in being barbaric.
What you see as Civilized is an illusion. Its nothing more than a certain level of control over the masses while the few elite daily exercise their barbarism in all its forms with very little consequence to themselves.
You seem to want to delve into abstract concepts on "THE TRUTH" behind civilization. Admittedly there is some truth in what you say, and I can agree on some aspects of your perspective, it's nothing more than a perspective.
The basic, undeniable truth and reality of civilization is that over the progression of humanity, we've come to establish systems of government, moral frameworks, the sciences, philosophy, virtues, principles, society, language, music, art, cultures and various other modes and tools we've used to gain a better understanding of ourselves and the universe around us and used that knowledge to better our quality of life and advance of the human race. And,* though primative qualities of humanity that predate civilization such as murder and rape still exist and have even been advanced through things like technology, it's a far cry from claiming we as a human species is as barbaric as we ever were. I'd imagine some philosophers would agree with you though, ironically enough.
In addition, I'll use my area of the world as an example, species populations need to remain in balance in order to be healthy. White tale deer in my area do not have the necessary predator population to achieve this. Allowing hunting seasons for deer give families food that allows them to save money on their grocery bills, they get a much healthier meal than all this processed and gmo crap and the deer as a species are healthier and better off for it. That's the reason there is a such thing as predator and prey... To maintain a balanced and healthy ecosystem.
I'd imagine overpopulation was the cause of bringing a new species into the ecosystem or some sort of human interference that led to an unbalanced ecosystem...Though I think hunters are better than the flesheater since they actually go out and obtain their meat instead of paying someone else to kill animals for them, it's still immoral to cause the unjustified death of animals. I'm don't know how bad the unbalanced the ecosystem you live in is, but as all nature does it will regulate itself and would eventually achieve equalibrium without human interference. If this means the death of animals through natural means, so be it. The inevitable death of an animal would not justify would not justify the murder of an animal.
And the fact that hunters benefit from the needless death of animals doesn't justify the death of animals. Even in poverty, a plant based diet remains as an easy, cheap alternative than an omnivorous diet. A more ethical one too.
