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[Thomas Heffernan]

  Someone wrote:
> We're an agricultural
>civilization, and we eat a lot of meat.  So did our ancestors, in periods when
>there wasn't much population pressure -- post Black Death, for example,
>northern Europeans ate over 2 pounds a day, on average.

It is true that agricultural Europeans ate a considerable amount of meat
post Plague. However, the increse in meat consumption is a direct response
to the exegencies of the Plague and is not reflective of the situation pre
1340's. It does not seem to be the case that pre-Plague European society
consumed nearly as much meat as after the Plague. It appears that the
diminished population caused the increased consumption in meat and meat
products after the Plague of the mid-14th century. Less population meant
less land necessary for cultivation amd less cereal grains necessary.
Marginal lands were no longer necessary for cropping as was the case before
the 1340's. Herding as practiced then was less labor intensive than
cropping. Hence with fewer people and more available land there was an
economic advantage to herding that had not previously existed. Yours, Tom
Heffernan