I don't think it's "meant" to be anything. Saying it is implies that humans were in some way "designed". They weren't. Over millions of years humans evolved to me omnivores: animals that can digest and obtain nutriments from both meat and plants. There are people who manage to survive on a diet made up of entirely or almost entirely meat or entirely plants so there is no doubt at all that, biologically, humans are omnivores.
Even on this site there are VERY few people who would deny that humans are omnivores.
There are a couple of creationists who post regularly who believe not only that God "designed" the human body but that "he" designed it to be herbivorous. Bizarrely, they also claim that The Bible prohibits the consumption of meat and that Jesus was vegan.
Edit: obviously though this does not mean that humans are under any kind of obligation to follow an omnivorous diet. We now have a choice and many people are perfectly healthy following a vegetarian or vegan diet.
Update: I think people are puzzled rather than confused. Asking what humans are "meant" to eat implies some intention. Evolution has no "intention". A species evolves according to its environment. Biologically too, there is no "intention". Everyone answering your question (I think) has explained that humans ARE omnivores, not as a result of any plan or intention or because soneone or something meant us to be but because of evolution.
It's not meant to be anything. We have evolved to suit what was available. And it is undeniably true that the human species, and those before it, ate meat. So do chimpanzees, the closest animal to us genetically.
It is also clear from our own physiology that we do not cope well with some plants. In particular, farmed grains are something we have only eaten in quantity since we invented agriculture, and too much refined carbohydrate in the form of grains leads to type 2 diabetes after a long period. We haven't evolved to cope with eating lots of bread, rice, potatoes and similar foods - maybe one day we will, but a few thousand years isn't long enough for that to happen. Fruit and nuts, yes - that's the sort of thing "cavemen" would have eaten a lot of. But other plant matter tends to be indigestible. Cows and other ruminants manage on grass because they have evolved a way to digest it, involving a multi-part stomach and bringing the food up again for a second chew. And too much fat in meat is known to do us no good. But we need Vitamin B12, and this is generally only available in enough quantity from animal products, which is why vegans are advised to take it as a vitamin supplement to avoid anaemia.
It seems evident that the "caveman diet" is what works best. Fruit and nuts, plants, with some occasional meat. The average western diet contains too much meat and going vegetarian a couple of days a week is no bad idea.
Science says humans are omnivores which means we can and do live quite healthily on a wide variety of foods including meats, dairy, eggs, veggies of all sorts, leafy greens, whole grains, nuts, seeds and roots. Meat eaters don't say that. the fact that we ARE omnivore is what allows vegans and vegetarians to be vegan or vegetarian.
You will never see a herbivore switch from greens to hunting for meat..imagine a cow or giraffe hunting for meat....You won't ever see carnivores switch from hunting to grazing...imagine a cat, hawk or owl doing that. Imagine a shark doing that.
amounts? Well, how that depends on if you live in a cold climate or hot one, adult or child, big person or petite person.
The classic food pyramid works for me, just heavier on the meat. One interesting thing of note is that an actuary did a study for health insurance research. He found that Americans don't eat enough fruit compared to other countries.
Answer: The diet has to fit the person. Every one is different and has different lifestyles. There is no ultimate diet, though Soylent drinkers will beg to differ :)
Humans evolved as omnivores which means that we can obtain nutrients from both meat and crop based foods. However if you were to refer to a natural diet, that is one that is based only on naturally occurring foods and omit any and all artificially produced nutrients a healthy human diet would contain a balance of meat and other animal products, grains and other seeds, vegetables, and fruit. Each of these has nutrients required for the healthy development of the human body that the others do not have. Meat and other animal products such as eggs and dairy contain B12 and certain other nutrients not found in crop based foods. Crop based foods in turn contain nutrients not found normally in meat (although blubber often contains enough of these nutrients to allow for a healthy diet which is how the Innu/Innuit survived and thrived in the far north). Scientific studies have shown that people without some form of animal products in their diet historically had shorter lives with more health issues. It has also indicated that the amount of meat and related animal products that humans have historically eaten is the reason for our development, mental and otherwise, to our current level. In turn nutrients found in a variety of crop based foods help to maintain a healthy body as well so each benefits the other. The ratio does vary between individuals with some requiring more animal products and some requiring less so a specific or ideal amount of each is basically impossible to designate. Some people, as mentioned above, derive the vast majority of their nutrients from animals while in other areas they derive a significant portion from crop based foods with their meat being mainly fish, seafood, and occasionally pork (historically from wild boars).
Both, with the proportion depending on what you do with your body and what climate you're in.
Meat is not required to survive. But we also aren't able to effectively digest most plant material the way true herbivores such as deer or cows can. Part of why veganism works in modern society is that we are (1) largely sedentary, so the high calorie requirements of primitive life won't necessitate eating calorie-dense foods like animal products, and (2) technologically advanced to the point where growing and transporting vegetables in the volume necessary to provide enough energy and nutrition is possible. In humanity's ancient state, we had neither luxury, so consuming animal protein and fat was necessary to stay alive. While that's no longer the case, that does not erase tens of thousands of years of our species' history, nor the millions of years of our evolutionary history.
Veganism, when stripped of its trappings, is in essence a religion. Its ideas revolve around morality - whether it is moral to use animals for food, either by slaughtering them for meat or using them for milk, cheese, butter, eggs, etc. All of the pseudoscience they rely upon is, much like the Young Earth Creationists of Christianity, hand-picked by people who share their agenda and cannot be relied upon to provide thoroughly-vetted, objective views of human anatomy and physiology.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of-diet/
These examples suggest a twist on “You are what you eat.” More accurately, you are what your ancestors ate. There is tremendous variation in what foods humans can thrive on, depending on genetic inheritance. Traditional diets today include the vegetarian regimen of India’s Jains, the meat-intensive fare of Inuit, and the fish-heavy diet of Malaysia’s Bajau people. The Nochmani of the Nicobar Islands off the coast of India get by on protein from insects. “What makes us human is our ability to find a meal in virtually any environment,” says the Tsimane study co-leader Leonard.
*Humans were not meant to be anything*
Evolution doesn't work that way. Animals don't evolve and then stay the same for the rest of existence. We have changed for hundreds of thousands of years and we will continue to do so. The human diet is not outlined and it continues to be fluid as humans continue to change.
Homo sapians of the past have always been opportunistic omnivores; we are capable of digesting either meat or vegetation and we can survive (if we had a mind to) on just one of those things. What we have eaten has continuously changed and human society has changed (especially once agriculture was common and civilizations began springing up around the world). This continues to be the case; I'm a human who survives on just vegetation. I was not "meant" to be a vegetarian, I have chosen to do so. Most people in my country have that choice.
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I can only describe it as "varied"
It wasn't until recently that a vegan diet was even viable. Those people would have starved themselves to death.
We don't get a whole lot of calories from plant matter. Which is why we consume meat (I consider fish a meat) and dairy.
Even then, it wasn't until very recently in human history that farming was practiced. Ironically, that is when the average human lifespan decreased.
