In this day and age westerners don't need to eat meat. We can get our protein from other sources such as tofu, which contains more protein than any meat source. Also pulses, nuts, seeds and grains offer plenty of protein to keep a diet balanced. The first man did not eat meat and only had teeth for grazing on vegetable matter with the odd insect thrown in. It was only as man learnt to hunt that they realised they could get other food sources and we slowly evolved to have teeth that where made for eating meat: before this we had grinding molars. Now we do not need to hunt to survive and we have other options to eat, therefore there is no need to eat meat. I strongly believe that if you can't kill it you should not eat it. What gives someone the right to think, ‘okay, I will just go and get my meat from the shop and not give a thought about the process by which it came to be on the supermarket shelf’? We do not even consider how it has affected the land on which it grazed and how much tonnage of vegetation (which could have been used for human consumption on a much smaller scale) was used to feed one animal. We don't NEED to eat meat to survive. If everyone cut back or gave up we would be saving the planet and helping to end poverty.