Then our appetite will take care of itself, and won't require conscious - and ultimately - futile endeavour.
And eating meat's fine (from a health perspective, if not ethical necessarily). We've been eating it for a couple of millions of years.
The current theory is that we developed sweating and bipedal walking to be endurance hunters, i.e. running after a prey animal until it is too exhausted to run any further. Tool use and development were also driven in part by hunting (spears, atlatl, bow and arrow, skinning knives etc.). Overall humans are omnivores, as evidenced by tooth layout. Some populations still manage to live on primarily meat-based diets (Inuit), albeit with some difficulties.
The main issue is the amount of meat: Hunting was difficult and dangerous, limiting how much meat we got. Being able to eat meat every day for almost every meal is a recent development and is a major difference to prehistorical diets. Plus, factory-farmed meat is significantly different from free-range animals w.r.t fat, hormone and antibiotics content.
I'm sure there were gathering of berries and plants to fill in between the feast. I mean they were called hunter / gatherers.
Because it ignores the fact that average life expectancy was significantly less than it is today - why would you want to take stone age humans as health role models? In fact average life expectancy almost doubled globally from high 40s to high 70s only very recently - well after we stopped eating meat all the time.
If half your population dies after 60, the lucky ones, and half before 2, your average "around 30 ish" life expectancy isn't particularly predictive.
A version of that argument applies to most things you would buy at a grocery store, e.g. modern apples are a lot sweeter than what our ancestors would've been accustomed to.
The behaviour of ancient humans doesn't necessarily indicate what will keep us modern humans healthy into old age, though. Do we even know whether they ate meat everyday?
Personally speaking, I will generally put on too much weight if I follow my appetite and don't count calories or follow some kind of plan. That's true even if I eat "real", home-cooked food.
My grandparents were farmers before farming became industrialized. If you look at how much meat they ate, it's very little compared to current generations.
Plus, what the cows and pigs ate in those days was very different than what they feed them today. I know of a farmer that raises a cow for his own consumption, and that one gets different food than all the rest. That should tell you enough already.
So the 'eat mostly plants' is very relevant for todays generation, even more so than before.
Humans didn’t exist millions of years ago…
Fat is not bad. We decided it was on the flimsiest of evidence and suspect "plausbility" arguments (eating fat makes you fat, obvs) and the subsequent attempts to prove the hypothesis in large scales studies have come up empty-handed.
> And it does significantly raise risks of various diseases, including cancer.
I significantly doubt that, the evidence, such that it is, is only found in highly confounded epidemiology that does not allow you to make that claim.
> If you’re going to eat it, I’d be very selective about the types and sources you consume.
Fair enough.
> Humans didn’t exist millions of years ago…
Google "how long have humans been eating meat". Not saying it's right, but it contradicts your point.
In the popular imagination we to tend blame journalism for the "one minute x causes cancer, the next minute x cures cancer" style flip-flopping, and I don't doubt some blame is due. However, the underlying science is hopelessly confounded and generates spurious small effects that are probably artefacts of the data than real effects. If this wasn't the case, how do you explain the constant self-contradiction and almost complete equivocality on every issue on these matters.
What is the causal connection you are talking about? I hope not the saturated fat, clogs the arteries, etc, etc. Everyone believed that 50 years ago, no one will in another 100 years. But persuade me; show me the unequivocal science and I'll change my mind. My understanding is that the efforts to show this effect have not worked.
↑ Saturated fats > ↑ LDL > ↑ Cardiovascular Disease
We have mendelian (genetic) studies that attest the causality of this link, ie. people who are naturally born with low LDL have less CVD. Not sure why you think this is not a compelling narrative.
Our mouths are too small for the number of teeth we have. A few million years is a lot of time in evolution, but it's still catching up with the invention of cooking.
Is that a general thing?
I was under the impression those of us from the British isles had a problem because of mixed heritage due to repeated invasion: we've managed to inherit a tendency for smaller jaws from southern influences and bigger teeth from north/west Europe.