There are exceptions where meat makes sense. At higher than 4000 meters, you aren’t going to grow much more than barley, so meat is pretty much it. I’ve never been so sick of meat than during a trip on the Tibetan plateau. Likewise for dry scrub land (Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona, irrigation can only do so much). Then there is the efficiency at which food for livestock can be grown vs for people.
That's interesting, as on the Nepal side you get only Dahl Bhat (rice and lentils), with maybe some pickles and luxury, a fried egg!
However in Mendoza, Argentina near to Aconcagua, you are inundated with beef steak and red wine, which sounds great, but after a few days of that you're feeling pretty heavy!
Nepal has much more agriculture than Tibet given that much of their land is much lower (Kathmandu is 1,400 meters, Lhasa is 3,655 meters). So most Nepalese are Hindu and can be vegetarians, while vegetarianism simply can’t exist in traditional Tibet (you won’t survive, so even Buddhist monks eat meat, incidentally the one thing Tibetans most like about being apart of China is easy access to agriculture imports).
South America I wonder if it’s more about converting nutrient poor jungles to grazing land?
