The Practice Began in the Early Days of the Church
The practice of fasting and abstaining from certain foods is an ancient one that has been practiced by many religions.
In the early years of Christianity in Europe, the Church instituted the practice of requiring the faithful to abstain from eating meat on Fridays in memory of Christ’s death. During the season of Lent, the Church also called for abstaining from eating meat on Wednesdays as well as on Fridays.
While the Church called upon all of the adult faithful to abstain from meat on these days, the rule really only applied to the rich as the poor generally could not afford meat. As many vegetarians and environmentalists point out, producing meat is a more costly way of providing the nutrition humans need as it takes time for the animals to grow to maturity and, during this period of growth, they are consuming plant life.
Humans, being omnivorous, are able to consume and digest both plant and animal life which means it is more efficient, from a production standpoint, to produce and eat the plant life directly rather than produce it to feed to animals and then eating the animals.
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