We're omnivores and there are very good reasons for it.
Apes seem to be predisposed towards omnivores, the main examples off the top of my heat being the chimpanzees and the orangutans, both of whom eat meat including the meat of other primates.
Our digestive tract is not well built for eating plants exclusively, we lack much of an appendix or other internal organs that many herbivores have to extract the maximum nutrition from plants.
Meat's energy density tends to be much greater than that of most plants when it comes to what we can extract from it. This is partly due to cellulose, the sugar based cell wall of all plant cells. It's almost indigestible and the only things that really break it down are the bacteria in the guts and stomachs of certain animals like cows, because of this it's more efficient to let cows eat something we cannot (grass), and then eat the cows where we can easily extract the nutrients from the animal tissue.
Adding to this, our brains began to really develop as a species after the advent of fire, fire and cooking allows us to extract far more energy from plants and animals than we would usually get. This coupled with the greater energy density of meat allowed us to spend more energy on growing our brains so large, energy wasteful, brains stopped being a disadvantage to survival.
Moreover, it's really hard to get complex proteins and fats from plants, things that we need to consume to stay healthy. Iron deficiency can also be a hazard as can deficiencies in vitamin B-12 or vitamin D. (Note, deficiencies in B-12 and Iron can both cause the blood to stop transporting oxygen as readily as a healthy person's, a condition known as Anemia) Unfortunately, despite Iron being prevalent in dark, leafy greens, these plants also contain minerals that prevent our bodies from readily absorbing them.
P.S. Modern life adds even more hazards to all vegetable diets, canned vegetables full of salt for instance, and switching to a died high in fiber suddenly can cause large amounts of gas to build up inside you which also gives rise to bloating. Vegetables high in Potassium or Phosphorus can also cause damage in people with kidney issues because the kidneys cannot excrete the excess minerals which then become toxic in higher concentrations. Oh, and eating too many vegetables high in beta-carotene (like carrots) can cause our bodies to have issues absorbing vitamin A.
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In essence, we rely on cooked meat because that's what spurred our evolution, we lack the digestive system to really take advantage of vegetables but we can use animals to process the vegetables for us and then eat them. This allows us to gather the difficult to acquire nutrients we need in easy doses instead of constantly grazing for nutrition like herbivores do.
Apes seem to be predisposed towards omnivores, the main examples off the top of my heat being the chimpanzees and the orangutans, both of whom eat meat including the meat of other primates.
Our digestive tract is not well built for eating plants exclusively, we lack much of an appendix or other internal organs that many herbivores have to extract the maximum nutrition from plants.
Meat's energy density tends to be much greater than that of most plants when it comes to what we can extract from it. This is partly due to cellulose, the sugar based cell wall of all plant cells. It's almost indigestible and the only things that really break it down are the bacteria in the guts and stomachs of certain animals like cows, because of this it's more efficient to let cows eat something we cannot (grass), and then eat the cows where we can easily extract the nutrients from the animal tissue.
Adding to this, our brains began to really develop as a species after the advent of fire, fire and cooking allows us to extract far more energy from plants and animals than we would usually get. This coupled with the greater energy density of meat allowed us to spend more energy on growing our brains so large, energy wasteful, brains stopped being a disadvantage to survival.
Moreover, it's really hard to get complex proteins and fats from plants, things that we need to consume to stay healthy. Iron deficiency can also be a hazard as can deficiencies in vitamin B-12 or vitamin D. (Note, deficiencies in B-12 and Iron can both cause the blood to stop transporting oxygen as readily as a healthy person's, a condition known as Anemia) Unfortunately, despite Iron being prevalent in dark, leafy greens, these plants also contain minerals that prevent our bodies from readily absorbing them.
P.S. Modern life adds even more hazards to all vegetable diets, canned vegetables full of salt for instance, and switching to a died high in fiber suddenly can cause large amounts of gas to build up inside you which also gives rise to bloating. Vegetables high in Potassium or Phosphorus can also cause damage in people with kidney issues because the kidneys cannot excrete the excess minerals which then become toxic in higher concentrations. Oh, and eating too many vegetables high in beta-carotene (like carrots) can cause our bodies to have issues absorbing vitamin A.
-----------
In essence, we rely on cooked meat because that's what spurred our evolution, we lack the digestive system to really take advantage of vegetables but we can use animals to process the vegetables for us and then eat them. This allows us to gather the difficult to acquire nutrients we need in easy doses instead of constantly grazing for nutrition like herbivores do.
