Animals evolved from bacteria and plants from algae.
They were the life forces back billions of years. When oxygen entered the earth’s atmosphere, bacteria formed mitochondria to burn it. When oxygen became more plentiful about 500 million years ago, life forms absorbed the mitochondria into cells. Now there was plentiful cheap fuel for energy.
This gave rise to an explosion of life forms. Larger life forms could exist because they had cheap available fuel for movement. The oxygen in the cells provided energy, but the oxygen that existed out of the cells were destructive.
Life forms fed on anti oxidants in the forms of vegetation. The greens from vegetables and fruit was nature’s way of protecting living organisms from natural forces. Without anti oxidants, life forms may not have evolved.
Enter modern man. He substituted Big Mac’s for greens and vegetables. He obviously knows more than earlier life forms. Look how healthy he is.