If you're reading this blog, you're probably into food. Perhaps you're even one of those people whose world revolves around your Viking stove and who believes that cooking defines us as civilized creatures.
Here, actors Stan Laurel and Edna Marlon play at socializing around the campfire, but it turns out that early man's brain developed in part thanks to cooking.
Here, actors Stan Laurel and Edna Marlon play at socializing around the campfire, but it turns out that early man's brain developed in part thanks to cooking.
Well, on the latter part, you'd be right. At least according to some neuroscientists from Brazil.
They noticed (haven't we all?) that humans have very big brains. But they point out that gorillas and orangutans have bigger bodies than we do by far, but smaller brains and fewer neurons. Normally, brain-size pretty much matches body size in primates. So how did we get so well-endowed?
We cooked.
Big bodies need a lot of energy. And the brain is especially a real calorie hog: About 20 percent of what we consume goes to the brain, even though it's only 2 percent of our body mass.
Our primate ancestors had to graze almost constantly to get enough calories from stuff like raw tubers or other vegetable matter. There was raw meat now and then, but by and large the apes, and our ancestors, were about as neurologically developed as their diets would allow, as we've reported before.
If you wanted a bigger brain, you had to downsize the rest of your body. In fact, the Brazilian scientists calculated that for a gorilla to get enough extra energy to grow a brain as big as ours, it would have to eat another two hours a day, on top of the nine hours or so it already spends feeding.
So what happened was, early humans discovered cooking. If you believe the British writer Charles Lamb, raw meat-eating humans kept pigs in their houses until one day a house burned down, pig inside, and we discovered roast pork.
The Brazilian scientists, however, don't speculate on how we stumbled on cooking (though Brazilians have earned a worthy reputation for refining the art of barbecuing, which they call churrasco).
What the scientists conclude is that cooking made food easier to chew and digest. Moreover, cooking releases more calories to the body in some cases. And it makes old meat that a dog wouldn't eat go down a little easier. The same benefits of cooking goes for tubers and veggies, too.
Oh, and don't overlook the fact that spending less time grazing and more time gathered around the fire gave us more opportunity to schmooze, which also may have helped hone our brains. If you don't believe any of this, you can check out the research by certified brain scientists, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In fact, there's quite a body of scientific literature out there that backs up this idea, which has long been championed by famous Harvard primatologist (and vegetarian) Richard Wrangham.
So raise a glass of good wine (fermentation being the other calling card of a higher order brain) and praise the cooks. You'd be stupid without them.
The Evolution of Early Man The Emperor Has No Clothes Sean D. Pitman, M.D. Updated October 2005 . Introduction . Taking isolated similarities by themselves, the theory of evolution appears to be quite reasonable to a ... Article Brain The Mind. The Brain. The Self. ... The brains key breeder cells, it turns out, do more than that. They secrete substances that boost the numbers and ... Human Evolution A study of the evolution of the human is necessary for the understanding of his cultural needs. Dichotomistic logic - did homo erectus discover fire? readings> the discovery of fire The homo sapiens mental revolution took place between 100,000 and 40,000 years ago, following the development of grammatical speech. Why Fat, Not Carbs, Are the Preferred Fuel for the Human Body ... Theres a good reason so many people (mostly the sugar-burners, whose disparate group includes fruitarians, veg*ans, HEDers, body-builders, most MDs, the USDA Meyer Lansky - The Jewish Magazine In Search of Meyer By Jerry Klinger "Murder Inc.", Balad, the Israel Supreme Court He sleeps silently in the Mt. Nebo Jewish cemetery in West Miami, Florida awaiting ... RTV6 - Indianapolis News, Indianapolis, Indiana News, Weather, and ... Visit TheIndyChannel.com for breaking news in Indianapolis, IN from WRTV. Indianapolis, Indiana breaking news, weather, and sports. Indianapolis, Indiana news and ... Lord Byron - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS (22 January 1788 19 April 1824), commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a ... Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com Romney: High-income tax will be sameRomney: I won't reduce taxes for wealthy The FIRE Place Background information, research papers and reports relating to the critical scientific issues of a magnetically confined fusion plasma.
No comments:
Post a Comment