We eat too much meat. Too much meat is not good for us, not as individuals, and not as a society.

But we should eat some meat. We are omnivores, and we are adapted to eating a diet of mostly plants, some meat, and not too much sugar. In other words, the exact opposite that we do now: massive amounts of sugar, lots of meat, and aside from cereals, almost no plant matter.

Eating meat has another benefit. Herbivores can survive and thrive on poor quality land good only for pasture, allowing us to extract high-quality protein from land which would otherwise go to waste. With eight billion hairless apes on the planet, we cannot feed them all on a vegan diet.

If people want to adapt a vegetarian or even a vegan diet, for ethical reasons, or to show off their status, it is possible to remain healthy if you do your research and are very careful about eating a balanced diet, which is hard but not impossible.

But it is better to be an ethical omnivore:

• Eat mostly vegetables and some grain.
• Reduce your meat and fish consumption.
• Insist on sustainably caught fish.
• Insist on humanely farmed and slaughtered animals. We're not savages.
• No excuse for animal cruelty.