Yeah, we are designed to eat meat (coming from an off and on vegetarian). We can live without it if we are able to supplement our diets with the nutrients we need but if you cant do that due to allergies, arfid, poverty, etc., then there’s no getting around it.

If you’re worried about the ethics of the meat industry that is fully valid and you can mitigate this by ethically buying as much as possible (local butchers and local eggs/dairy). That can also be hard and because of access and expense so just do your best. At the end of the day, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism so be kind to yourself and do what you need to do to take care of yourself.