Your reference to the ‘pastoral’ solution is a good one and is one that I questioned as well (although probably not along the lines you might). Also, her references to the behavior of veg*ans was mostly anecdotal and did not really help her argument for the rest of us. I just chalked that up to the memoir/cathartic nature of the book. But to say those shorcomings render ‘her entire argument absurd’ is hyperbolic.

‘Nitrogen does not come from animals.’ Are you saying there is no need to ‘fix’ nitrogen into the soil in order to enable nutrients to reach plants through the roots and that using dead animals (that’s a good bit of what fossil fuels are) does not serve this aim? That air is composed of nitrogen is of little consequence in this regard (for most plants). It’s a little like saying I don’t need to ingest/digest (add acids, enzymes, yadda, yadda) my food, I can just schmeer it over my skin and I’ll be set.

I thank you for the comment and agree with you on some points. However, a refutation it is not.

1. Nitrogen does not come from animals. It is the most abundant element in air and animals get all the nitrogen in them from plants. Legumes(plants) fix nitrogen from the air in a symbiosis with microbes. The only other sources of nitrogen are certain mined sources and a chemical process that takes nitrogen from the air using petroleum.
2. Acknowledging the circle of life does not mean that you cannot choose where to be in that circle. Hence the vegan desire to eat lower on the food chain does not negate this.
3. The vast majority of modern science acknowledges that a well planned vegan diet is healthful and prevents many diseases associated with meat.
4. The author advocates pastoralism which is an outgrowth of agriculture(the very thing she claims is the root of all evil). This makes her entire argument absurd.
5. The longest lives people on the planet all eat mostly plants. Many vegans have lived long healthy lives including myself and they have no need to lie about the food they eat contrary to her slanderous statements in this book.
6. The authors credibility is lacking due to the many factual errors that riddle this book including her silly idea that you can get more calories per unit area from animal husbandry than from plant growth.
7. She build a straw man argument by contrasting industrial agriculture versus Salatin model. Veganism does not equal industrial ag just as I am sure she would agree that meat eating does not equal CAFO.