Either that or the cynical bumper sticker loved by many in sheep country "Eat American lamb. 10 million coyotes can't be wrong" (though in urban environments the coyotes also seem to do well with the common housecats, most of whom are these days freed from their historical role keeping the rodent population from decimating grain supplies.)
And along comes Shag with a whole chapter on paleo-digestion to save me the trouble.
Not so fast, nor any better encumbered by citations but tough.
Definitely not inclined to argue with the basic point about the centrality of meat. Plus, one supposes that a relatively small hunter, the protohuman of choice, hunting something relatively large with relatively primitive tools would have had to have a pretty intense social collaborative aspect which could enhance the advantage of the increasing brain case especially if dental evolution also made it easier for the protohumans to produce complex speech.
But climate change brain is not so easily assuaged. Did australopithecus eating patterns contribute to climate change? Figuring that out might be unknowable. Even the modern age still abounds with people who would try to bury a couple hundred years of data in 1000-year trends but I figure if primitive man could hunt a whole bunch of megafauna to extinction, might be worthwhile checking out.
Skip forward a few hundred thousand years to methane and the carbon economy. Someone I know the other day was going on about the carbon footprint of a Big Mac because of all the methane produced by cow stomachs. I debated pointing out that the carbon footprint would be the same for much shishier brands of burgers except maybe for the how many miles on your food question. The other issue though: putting up with methane to feed cows off grasslands that won't grow anything else is a whole different bargain from cutting down forests, tropical or otherwise with their vast carbon sink / oxygenating properties to grow more grassland to feed cows.
The other issue: today the question of caloric density looks really different from prehistoric times. Modern urban life requires a lot less physical activity even than previous decades, and there is a much bigger problem with food that is calorically dense but nutritionally unbalanced, full of carbohydrates and fat, lacking in vitamins and protein. Does this mean I need Michael Pollan to expiate all current nutritional sins? Not bloody likely. I just don't do "one true religion," no matter what flavor of religion is involved....
DC