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The evolutionary role of cooking
- alecst 18y agoStating cooking "underpins all other [human evolutionary changes]" sounds interesting if corroborated. I perused the web for some more information on Richard Wrangham's research. Wikipedia provided this: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=cooking-up-bigger-brains http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=cooking-up-bigger-brains http://artsci.wustl.edu/~hpontzer/Courses/Wrangham&Conklin-Britain2003CBP%20Cooking%20as%20a%20Biological%20Trait.pdf http://artsci.wustl.edu/~hpontzer/Courses/Wrangham&Conkl... ...and the evidence points against him. Fire doesn't appear to have been controlled until far after Wangham assests. Not only, but: The mainstream view among anthropologists is that the increase in human brain-size was due to a shift away from the consumption of nuts and berries to the consumption of meat. makes more sense. The transition from primitive food sources (nuts, berries -- chimp food now) may have catalyzed the transition to a regular high-calorie diet. Take this article with a juicy fliet mignon, topped with a generous helping of salt.
- ShardPhoenix 18y agoBoth the linked article and the sci-am article show that this is hardly a settled matter either way, and that Wrangham's thesis isn't unreasonable.
- alecst 18y agoRight. I'm of the opinion that human evolution was influenced by a combination of these two factors, in addition to many others. However, given the evidence, I do not think that cooking is the preeminent contributor to cognitive/human/metabolic development.
- nsrivast 18y agoThis qualified opinion should have been your original comment.
- bk 18y agoJust as a side note, nuts are hardly a primitive food source, or just "chimp food". Mongongo nuts are the traditional staple diet of southern African hunter-gatherers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongongo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongongo). Per 100 grams shelled nuts (from wikipedia): * 57 g fat: o 44% polyunsaturated o 17% saturated o 18% monounsaturated * 24 g protein * 193 mg calcium * 4 mg zinc * 2.8 mg copper * 565 mg vitamin E (and tocopherol)
- uberc 18y agoFrom this description, the mainstream view seems to subscribe to the discredited Lamarckian view of evolution, i.e. the idea that traits acquired during parents lifetime (e.g. bigger brains from eating meat) can be transmitted to offspring. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inheritance_of_acquired_characters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inheritance_of_acquired_charact...
- albertsun 18y agoIt's not that eating meat makes your brain grow bigger. It's (eating meat)/(eating cooked food)/(having a richer diet) that makes people born with a larger brain more likely to survive. Otherwise, a larger brain would be a hindrance since your body would use more resources than you could easily consume.
- immad 18y ago"he thinks that cooking and other forms of preparing food are humanity’s “killer app" Am I the only one that thought killer app was only used in reference to web/technology platforms :)
- alecst 18y agoThis is called an analogy.
- immad 18y agoI know. I just found the analogy interesting, since I didn't think the killer app term was mainstream.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- ewiethoff 18y agoNo, "killer app" is only used in reference to spreadsheets! :-) Learn your history and think VisiCalc. http://hubpages.com/hub/VisiCalc--the-First-Killer-App-of-the-Computer-Era http://hubpages.com/hub/VisiCalc--the-First-Killer-App-of-th...
- mfhughes 18y agoYeah, it's also used by journalists and bloggers who want to sound more clever than they really are when talking about subjects in which they have no formal training or practical experience.
- ewiethoff 18y agoI learned from the article that cooking "denatures proteins." I happen to be very allergic to all raw produce except grapes, apples, onions, lettuce, and spinach. Everything else needs to be cooked. No crudités or fresh orange juice for me. People look at me funny and ask why cooking would make a difference. I say, "I dunno, but it must break down my allergy molecules so that I don't react to them." Then they (idiots all!) say, "No, that doesn't make sense." Now I can confidently snow people with "denatured proteins," whether or not that's the true reason for cooking solving my produce allergy problem. Confidently bowl people over with scientific jargon, and they believe you.
- albertsun 18y agoSo you're allergic to folded proteins? That seems unlikely since even those few raw things you can eat have trace amounts of different proteins in them. If I were very allergic to so many different foods, I'd want a real explanation for my own sake at least, and not just try to snow people with scientific jargon.
- etal 18y agoSome lactose-intolerant people do better with cooked dairy products, like pizza. Biology isn't like computers; usually a small bug, like a protein the body can't process, is fine in trace amounts. Even a little strychnine is fine in trace amounts.
- ewiethoff 18y agoI would love a real explanation. But believe you me, allergy science is just getting started. (So is a heck of a lot of other medical knowledge.) "Allergists" didn't even exist until a few decades ago. "Allergy and immunology" is a pretty new specialty. My pediatrician switched his practice to "allergy and asthma" in 1970. He told my mom he did so because he wanted to try to help whatever the heck is wrong with me. Well, I can't read his mind for motives, but that's what my mom reported. I astound and baffle allergists when their tests reveal the huge numbers of foods--and varieties of foods--I'm allergic to. (Note to self: I am not going into my other allergy foods here.) Their first reaction is to blurt out, "What do you eat?! How do you live?! It's a wonder you're alive!" After that, their reactions and attempts to help vary considerably. The closest I've gotten to an explanation from a live doctor is hearing one mutter something about "volatile oils" into his Dragon Naturally Speaking before walking off and leaving his nurse distressed for my sake. I do get strange satisfaction knowing that food allergies have gotten much more prevalent in the past decade or so. This means more researchers take more interest in it, the FDA changes its food labeling laws, the general populace has a little more knowledge, etc. When I'm feeling grandiose, I tell myself that my strange body (and that of a guy I spoke to on the phone who is a guinea pig at the Mayo because he's allergic to all foods) are the vanguard or cassandras or whatever for something new and weird going on in the world. But perhaps I read too many Greg Bear novels. ;-) I subscribe to an allergy research newsletter from South Africa, which contains a lot of fascinating, nerdly stuff I never hear from live doctors. And when I do try to mention research, I get, "That means you don't need me except to prescribe Epipens." But I got away from reading it a few years ago. I think I'll head back to doing so. Thank you for indirectly putting the bee in my bonnet. http://www.allallergy.net/abstracts/index.cfm http://www.allallergy.net/abstracts/index.cfm Ah! A quick glance reveals an article called "The importance of nasal provocation test in the diagnosis of natural rubber latex allergy." This just might pertain to me even though I have a banana allergy, not a latex allergy... But I think I'll leave it for a few days. This whole topic is getting way too heavy today. Bye, folks. I'm logging out.
- wozer 18y ago>And the consumption of a cooked meal in the evening, usually in the company of family and friends, is normal in every known society. In Germany peope have their cooked meal at noon (or at least most still have). Until recently (i.e. a few decades ago), this was also the case in Scandinavia.