On Food and Cooking

If meat eating helped our species survive and
then thrive across the globe, then it’s
understandable why many peoples fell into the
habit, and why meat would have a significant
place in human culture and tradition. But the
deepest satisfaction in eating meat probably
comes from instinct and biology. Before we
became creatures of culture, nutritional
wisdom was built into our sensory system, our
taste buds, odor receptors, and brain. Our taste
buds in particular are designed to help us
recognize and pursue important nutrients: we
have receptors for essential salts, for energy-
rich sugars, for amino acids, the building
blocks of proteins, for energy-bearing
molecules called nucleotides. Raw meat
triggers all these tastes, because muscle cells
are relatively fragile, and because they’re
biochemically very active. The cells in a plant
leaf or seed, by contrast, are protected by
tough cell walls that prevent much of their
contents from being freed by chewing, and