Cooking May Have Made Us Human 253
SpaceGhost writes "Anthropologist Richard Wrangham, author of Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human believes that the discovery of cooked food led to evolutionary changes resulting in a smaller and different digestive system based on a higher-quality diet, mainly relying on cooked meat. In an interview on NPR's Science Friday (text and audio), Professor Wrangham explores concepts such as the digestive costs of food, the benefits (or lack thereof) of raw diets, and a distinct preference in Great Apes for cooked food over raw."
Re:Not Quite. (Score:1, Informative)
Evolution is defined as "survival of the fittest."
No, it's not. Wikipedia is closer: "Evolution is change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next."
1.9 Million or 150,000 years ago? (Score:4, Informative)
Compare this article with the one posted back in August 2008:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/08/08/12/2036254/Cooking-Stimulated-Big-Leap-In-Human-Cognition [slashdot.org]
Opinions?
--Paul
Dupes make us human.. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:vegetarians (Score:5, Informative)
The reason for this is that the genetic material passed on through reproduction comes entirely from the cells in your reproductive organs, so no matter how much you train your neck (or stomach, in your case), none of those changes can in any way get passed to your children, because those cells just aren't involved in the process.
Is it a new news ? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:If you think that through... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:More efficient? (Score:3, Informative)
The Pottenger Experiments. [nutritionreallyworks.net]
While that research might be fine when it comes to cats (I have no knowledge of the field, and I can't be bothered to Google for any scholarly papers to back up the assertions on a website) you are aware that that's completely inapplicable to digestion and nutrition in humans? The issue here is that cats are carnivores and humans are omnivores; the evidence for this is in our dentition, but you can bet that our guts will be at least as different.
Humans have been cooking food for a long long time, through a number of population constrictions. It's entirely possible that we have adaptations that make us better than most animals at dealing with cooked food. Whether we actually have or not is a good question, but evidence from other mammals won't help.
Re:It changed our relationships with animals as we (Score:4, Informative)
Hmm. I come from India, in a place where there are plenty of cobra's and they are killed on sight (i.e - even if they are not causing trouble, because the general idea is that if a cobra doesn't cause trouble today, it will tomorrow). India is a vast place, with a multitude of cultures, so it is possible that in some part of India the situation that you describe does exist. When I searched for this on the web, though, I came up with the following on National Geographic TV:
Perhaps you confused Thailand with India. Or perhaps you are right, and there really is a place like you describe in India. All I could find, though, was the above reference.
Re:If you think that through... (Score:1, Informative)
. . . widely accepted fact . . .
You mean "theory"
Re:vegetarians (Score:3, Informative)
Re:More efficient? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It changed our relationships with animals as we (Score:3, Informative)
Dogs aren't carnivores. They're omnivores, just like we are, and their digestive system is very similar due to "shared evolution". There's a reason why dogs will get sick if they eat nothing but raw meat; likewise, they'll get sick if they eat only raw foods (like, oh, carrots) they will get ill (and often turn on their owners, if they're large enough)?
Have you ever seen a dog eat grass, bugs, or cooked vegetable/grain table scraps? That's partially because their dietary needs are very similar to our's.
Dogs are foragers. They'll eat most anything, but prefer meat and cooked foods - just like we do. some wild dogs are somewhat similar, in that they prefer meat which is at least partially decayed so it is easier to digest.
It's likely that dogs in early China weren't kept like pigs or chickens might be. They were probably "kept" in much the same way that cats are kept on farms in much of the world: for pest control. The dogs would eat the rats and mice, keeping their populations in check, as well as helping keep predators away from the chickens.
Re:Cuisine indicates wealth of past cultures. (Score:2, Informative)
> no matter if you are in New York, Bumfuck Oklahoma, or Syria.
Actually, that would be Coca-Cola. They sell exactly the same product everywhere.
McDonald's doesn't. On the contrary, they adapt their menu to fit local expectations and tastes. In Ecuador, the Big Mac has cabbage on it instead of lettuce, and the beef has a very different flavor due to being mountain-grazed rather than grain-fed. In India, they don't use beef at all. In the midwestern US, anything labeled as "spicy" is in fact quite bland. (For example, when I was working at McDs in the mid nineties, they had a "Cajun Chicken" sandwich. I'm pretty sure the strongest spice in it was a pinch of black pepper.)