Every animal is just animal, every meat is just meat. People might not eat their cow/hen/pig/camel... but will buy same meat at shops as beef/pork/chicken/camel.... might be because they grew affection towards that particular animal because it was with them , but you will find people who do not do grow affection because they know some day they will eat it.
It is true what Virinchi sir said " in the past everyone ate meat" because it includes bhuddist, bhramins , and so on...... . but I am not sure about how the facts were gathered by the author in that book
Their meat struggles to mix with human system and this replusion causes diseases. This is what Ravana wrote about in his book 'Kumara Tantram' that beaf consumption leads to 93 types of diseases.
Vegetarianism and stopping meat eating was not heard decades ago at this level in India or west. But everything should have a reason why it started. In the past situation in India it might be the Brahmin's strategy to kill Buddhism and establish Brahminism because Buddhism was much popular, So they stopped eating meat to be unique from Buddhism , I read this point from the book "The Untouchables".
In the present situation we hear a lot about the word "vegan" in the west. western people want to stop eating meat because it needs a lot of land for cattle farms and grazing grounds. To meet the meat demand they might move into overgrazing which leads to deforestation, land slides,...deserts like Sahara. Secondly, the amount of methane that comes from these huge number of cows is good enough to contribute global warming. Situation is so serious that people started making plant based chicken burger, chicken nuggets...for example company like "impossible foods ".
Politics in developing countries or third world nations play a major role in most of the sensitive issues, because they always want a new topic to make use of or take advantage . So guys respect every animal equally and also eat whatever you like and live the present life because we do not know if after life exists.