Why should we eat a variety of foods when animals can only eat grass?

Humans eat a variety of foods to maintain health and replenish energy, but animals are satisfied with grass. Why does this paradox exist?

Everyone has taught us to eat right since childhood. It is considered that we can avoid many diseases if the body has enough vitamins and trace elements. As part of a “balanced diet”, a person needs to eat fish, vegetables, cereals, dairy products, and much more! But why can animals eat one product all their lives, is it OK?

Should a person also switch to eating only grass?

The diet of animals is incredibly boring. They can only eat grass and leaves all their lives! You may consider such a diet very bad, but let’s find out what a “balanced diet” is.

A balanced diet provides the right balance of nutrients and minerals needed by the human body for the best functioning. Such a diet should contain six groups of vital nutrients: carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water. The deficiency of elements in one of the groups can lead to various diseases, dehydration, starvation, and even death. That’s the explanation for why humans eat a variety of foods.

Why don’t animals eat a variety of foods?

Of course, if animals did not receive the proper number of vital elements, they simply would not have survived to this day. One of the reasons why we consider the diet of animals to be meager is that we do not see what exactly they eat. For example, deer are herbivorous animals. They feed not only on plants but also on small birds and the organs of other animals. Carnivores also eat the organs of their prey, as they are rich in certain nutrients that cannot be in muscle tissue (or “meat”).

Secondly, it is important to understand that even we can live peacefully without several “right products”. Surely, you have friends who do not eat vegetables at all or avoid any animal food. To survive, we, like many other species, require a surprisingly small variety in our diet. We don’t need to eat a variety of foods, from one side.

From the other side, the question is “survival” arises. Yes, you can survive for years just by eating fries, but this way you will “accumulate” a huge number of problems in the body. It will weaken the immune system and, so, you will be more prone to diseases. In other words, the quality of your life will not be so high. But if you eat a variety of foods, you get many useful nutrients.

As for wild animals, we are also talking about “survival”. Most animals feed on what is available to them at the moment. They don’t tend to eat a variety of foods, because many of them are unreachable.

Their average life expectancy is not so high, and the main task is to leave as many offspring as possible. It is a survival strategy for wild animals. However, (most) people want to live much longer than average and lead an active, happy life. That is why we should maintain a balanced diet, called a “recommendation”.