by Daniel Brouse and The Membrane Domain
To the best of my knowledge there has never been a culture that has thrived as vegetarians.
All evidence (throughout the history of humankind) shows man to be an omnivore.
Depending mostly on climate conditions, the ratio of plant to animal intake varies. In colder and more severe environments, the meat in-take is usually much larger. This primarily occurs for two reasons:
1) plants won’t grow. You can’t eat what isn’t there. (Ask an Eskimo. He’ll know.)
2) the concentration of nutrients is much higher in meat than in vegetables. This means you can harvest less tonnage of food. It also means the culture can have less of an impact on the environment (then if they cut their meat in-take and became more herbivore-like.)