In the past, Homo sapiens would have been unable to survive without meat. There was very little else to eat but meat, not that they were aware of the need for proteins or that meat included them. If they did consume some vegetables, fruits, or berries, it was only as a supplement to the meat that was the standby of their diet.

Domestication of animals occurred early in human history, and nomadism, which was popular at the time, did not prevent people from “carrying” animals wherever they went. Plant domestication came later, leading to agriculture and a “settled” lifestyle. A crop’s ability to last till harvest and yield adequate sustenance was unknown. Droughts, floods, and pests may render agriculture unviable (even today, there is no assured return from a crop in all places and in all contexts). Cultivation was a dangerous hobby for early people because they lacked access to organic or artificial fertilizers. So, why would someone or a group of people work long hours in agriculture and sacrifice a simpler lifestyle with plenty of meat? In addition, as humans became increasingly reliant on Mother Nature’s whims, they became more vulnerable to the weather’s fluctuations. Between 40,000 and 14,000 years ago, cave and rock paintings were created, which is especially noteworthy during the Upper Palaeolithic period. Plants were domesticated just around 12,000 years ago. This suggests that before people became cultivators, they had ample free time to indulge in art, which is still a popular interest today.

Humans, on the other hand, entered agriculture and settled life for a variety of reasons, one of which could be the scarcity of animal food. Regardless of the yield from farming, animal feeding has never been abandoned throughout history. When enough non-meat food became available, a small number of people stopped eating meat or only ate it on rare occasions, giving rise to the term “vegetarian,” albeit a large majority of the population continued to eat the standard diet, namely meat. The vegetarians eventually slapped the label “non-vegetarian” on the majority of people who had just continued to do what they had done throughout human history: eat meat for no discernible or rational reason.In whatever part of the world they live in, vegetarians have always been in the minority, if not extinct. Despite the belief that Indians are mostly vegetarians (and thus “non-violent”), the reality is considerably different. Meat is, in fact, ingested by the vast majority of people. Seventy percent of women and 78 percent of men in India eat meat, according to the 4th National Family Health Survey.