Message #581

[JJ]

...designed...?

Yes, if you look at the various anatomical and chemical systems in our body, we are clearly designed (chosen since I don't believe that we exist by evolutionary accident) to be able to eat both forms of food source.  However, we are not designed to eat grass, and I'm told that the conversion rate of a purely vegetarian diet (and I'd live on one quite happily) is not as good as that of a combined diet.

I don't agree at all about design.  What's best for the species at present is a result of conditions over time.
The species evolves to deal with the conditions which it's born into. And as most of our development happened in pre cooked grain times it seems like our bodies are suited to meat nuts, berries, and wild vegetables.  Then when cooking became commonplace thus increasing the calories available from any given foodstuff then our brains developed inordinately.  And then settled groups developed farming of grain, and we became fat!