I reject this line of reasoning because by it the best meal is other humans. If you accept that eating other animals is OK and eating fellow humans is bad then you are halfway to the next step, where eating fellow animals is bad and eating non-animals is OK. Just be smart about your diet. Call yourself sapiens not for nothin'!
The original question was about a "meal that provides all the essential nutrients the average person needs to stay healthy over the long term"
The simplest, easiest, and the most correct answer is "just eat animals".
Of course, one can be "smart" about their diet, spend a lot of time on carefully balancing vegetables, fruit, grains and tofu, while also making sure to consume proper blend of vitamin and mineral pills and doing regular blood tests. BUT that's far from a "single meal", far from "easy" and "simple", and consumes a lot of time and mental capacity which many humans might not have a luxury to allocate in order to be fellows with farm animals, I think.
> The original question was about a "meal that provides all the essential nutrients the average person needs to stay healthy over the long term"
> The simplest, easiest, and the most correct answer is "just eat animals".
Stop right there. This is playing switcharoo.
You devised a hypothesis that elegantly goes like "healthiest simplest diet is what is closest to your own body". (And that you used as a justification to eat other animals)
But hey I guess the closest to your body is other humans. So seeing as you now backtrack and are not suggesting humans eat humans, thankfully you understand that the original question implies some norms about what is acceptable and what is unacceptable to eat even if it is contains all you need.
Now you just need to see why growing numbers of people think about eating not only fellow humans but fellow animals who are conscious, feel pain and suffer, especially the ones who grow up for consumption and suffer entire life tortured as unacceptable and you're all set.
In addition there is another "little problem" with your argument and that is that humans don't eat through by absorbing stuff like some sort of amoeba. It goes through complex digestive process that extracts some stuff from other stuff. And a bunch of stuff a human body can/should synthesize. Remember healthy eating is also NOT getting stuff you don't need and synthesize. And if you find the closest thing to what's in your body, that'll be a whole lotta stuff you do not need.
So no "just pick what's the same as your body" is not the most "simple healthy meal". On more than one level. It's just an excuse to justify a existing taste for meat.
As I understood your argument, you primarily don't like the idea of eating animals based on your beliefs, and you would oppose it even if animals were the healthiest food available ever. So I don't think we contradict each other here — I've heard you, and I understand your ethical position.
> And a bunch of stuff a human body can/should synthesize
You're 100% correct here, I am aware of that. For example, if you only eat meat, your body will synthesize glucose which it would be otherwise lacking (which technically means that meat does not contain the "optimal amount" of sugars).
> Remember healthy eating is also NOT getting stuff you don't need and synthesize
And also getting stuff that a body cannot synthesize enough. Like the notorious B vitamin pills that vegans pop like candy.
> It's just an excuse to justify a existing taste for meat
No excuse needed, god (or nature) made cows delicious — what do you think is the reason for that?
> Like the notorious B vitamin pills that vegans pop like candy
Anecdotal like a lot of this but I take a single 2000mcg B12 pill once per week and have never been deficient in 19 years as a vegan. Once a week is pretty far from popping like candy.
> No excuse needed, god (or nature) made cows delicious — what do you think is the reason for that?
Again elegant but broken theory to justify a taste. Have you tried eating cow as it appears in "nature"? Let me know how delicious raw meat is. If you manage to kill it mano el mano as "nature" intended of course ;)
And of course apples are delicious. Beans. Avocado. Nuts.
Stuff can be very bad for you but taste very good. How do you know this is not that case with animals? If you think "god" made them tasty check maybe it was the satan actually? Animal conditions make me think of that guy more;)
The simple healthy meal is not eating animals. Coincidentally not the most tasty by a long shot but taste is subjective and always changes depending on what you get used to
As I mentioned in the other place, I've tried the carnivore diet, and I think you 100% can just eat fatty meat for months (and likely years), and you will feel great, and you blood work will improve.
Am I saying it's what you should do? No, primarily because I am not your mother, and also I don't know your current focuses in life.
To continue this, the next step is eating fellow life is bad and eating non-life is OK. Just use an Instagram filter to recolour your face away from grey.
It's meant to digest anything it can digest. Morally I would disagree with someone who says "eat anything but conscious beings" because that would include eating people who are asleep or passed out, or dead.
So you think your gut is meant to digest human flesh? Fun worldview
> eat anything but conscious beings
"conscious" here means "possessing consciousness" not "conscious right now".
> include eating people who are asleep or passed out, or dead
The point is we eat what we think is acceptable to eat not just any random thing we can digest. Because we have some norms about what is OK to eat. Most norms say eating humans (dead or alive) is bad. Other norms say eating animals is also bad. QED.
