In taxonomy we humans (and the extinct Neanderthals) belong to the species Homo Sapiens Sapiens and we share the same ancestors as some of the still existing apes like Chimpansee, Gorilla, Urang Utang and Bonobo (Family of Hominidae).
ANIMALIA (Animal Kingdom)
-> CHORDATA
-> MAMMALIA
-> PRIMATES
-> HOMINIDAE (Hominids)
-> HOMO
-> HOMO SAPIENS
-> HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS (Humans)
Primates have been wandering on the planet for more than 60 million years, while Hominids started to develop 5 million years ago. Humans are quite "recent": they only started their existence about 200.000 years ago.
Before Homo Sapiens Sapiens (Humans) roamed the land: mainly fruit*. Humans added nuts, grains, seeds and plants.
What about the hunters? Sure, animals were sometimes hunted and killed for food during certain ceremonies and rituals, in certain ecological niches, or when fruit and plants were scarce.
The Maya (1500 BC - 1500 AD) had maize, pumpkin, beans, chilies, yuca and of course Xocolatl (chocolate) on their daily menu. Just like the Maya in Latin America had maize as their staple food, peoples from other regions had their staples; South America had the potato, Asians had rice and European and African tribes had grains.
For hundreds of thousands of years, meat and/ or fish were absolutely never part of the daily diet and humans were consuming mainly plants, nuts, seeds, grains and fruits. There were no diseases like High Blood Pressure, cardiovascular disease, cancer, auto-immune disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, osteoporosis; those only started showing up when humans in the West started eating more (often) meat, fish, dairy and eggs.
What about hunters? There is evidence of that, isn't there? That's right. Animals were certainly hunted to eat during special rituals, or because groups lived in an ecological niche (like the Inuit) or because of scarcity of plants and fruit.
Meat and/or fish were absolutely not part of the daily diet.
During the relentless warfares in the Middle Ages, whether or not the Roman Empire was expanding or shrinking and the spread of faith through crusades, an unprecedented lust for power arose that also manifested itself in status symbols such as hunting, killing and eating (wild) animals.
Eating animals was only for the “rich”. And along came the disease of the rich as well: gout**.
Gout is a disease, a rheumatic inflammation, that occurs in people who eat a lot of animal proteins. An excessive presence of purine in animal food - which is broken down into uric acid - leads to the accumulation of uric acid crystals, often on the toe.
Too much uric acid can also cause kidney stones.
**Rich Man's Disease. The free online medical dictionary, thesaurus and encyclopedia. Farlex.
In 2017, Americans, on average ate as much chicken IN ONE DAY as they did IN ONE YEAR in 1930.
In the West, we have increasingly started eating meat, fish, eggs and dairy products. With this development, our typical “Western” diseases such as: cardiovascular diseases, cancer, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, Alzheimer's, osteoporosis and MS also emerged.
Remember for now: humans fed themselves for hundreds of thousands of years with mainly plants, nuts, seeds, grains and fruits. There was no explosive increase and presence of our Western diseases.
Are we even suitable to eat animals? Check our physiology here!