jews and vegetarianism

Ok, so normally I don't read magazines like this, but I was given one at a conference I was at, and found an interesting little bit inside.

"Man was originally vegetarian - this according to Abraham Isaac Hacohen Kook, the first Ashkenazic chief rabbi of Israel and himself a vegetarian, who says that vegetarianism is "a condition that will be restored in the time of the Messiah, when 'the lion shall eat straw like an ox.'" Biblical commentators explain that before Noah and the Flood, the eating of meat was forbidden and only afterward was humanity, now on a lower level, allowed the concession called basar ta'avah (meat of lust).

Many modern Jews opt for vegetarianism for reasons concerning health, ecology, conservation of resources, or rejection of antibiotics and other drugs, or as a reaction to inhumane (and, therefore, un-Jewish) animal-raising practices in factory farms. Vegetarianism also provides a simpler way to keep kosher: After all, a meatless diet never conflicts with dairy foods. Even among those who don't completely eschew meat, many recognize that too much is consumed in our society and, as the Talmud declares, "the Torah teaches a lesson in ethical conduct that man shall not eat meat unless he has a special craving for it...and even then he should eat it only occasionally and sparingly."