In an era where nutrition is at the center of a heated public debate, often influenced by ideological and polarizing positions, it is essential to return to scientific data to understand the role that certain foods, such as meat, have had, and continue to have, in our evolution and well-being.

Hi, let me introduce myself. My name is Lucy! I am an Australopithecus afarensis and I am more than 3 million years old. My life in the African savannah represents the first chapter of a long and fascinating story: that of the human being. If you are here reading these words today, it is also thanks to what my kind and I started doing back then: feeding ourselves in a more intelligent, strategic, and nutritious way.

Yes, we are specifically discussing animal proteins and human development. A combination that changed everything: it allowed us to have a bigger brain, a more efficient body, and, over time, a more complex society. Food made man, and I am the proof of it.

At the beginning, in my era, we were gatherers. However, over time, we began to incorporate high-energy-density foods into our diet, including insects, larvae, and eventually meat. This change marked a decisive turning point. Our digestive system became slimmer, while the brain was able to grow and develop. The cognitive leap that followed freed time and energy to socialize, collaborate, and invent. And that is why nutrition and evolution are two sides of the same coin.

Now, let’s go back to today. Still today, animal proteins remain an irreplaceable ally for our body. They are not just nutrients: they are fundamental building blocks of life, necessary for the functioning of the brain, of the immune system, for growth, and cellular regeneration.

Among all protein sources, those of animal origin – present in meat, fish, eggs, and milk – stand out for their high biological value: they contain all the essential amino acids, those that our body is not able to produce by itself.

The question I ask you is this: Why do we eat like we speak? In an era in which nutrition is often ideologized, it is fundamental to recover the sense of food as a conscious act, which holds together nutrition, sustainability, and culture.

Our way of eating has an impact on everything: from the environment to animal welfare, from food security to our mental health. That is why knowledge, balance, and responsibility are needed.