The evolutionary role of cooking

http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13139619

by colins_pride • 17 years ago

64 30 17 years ago

alecst3• 17 years ago

Stating 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://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• 17 years ago

Both 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.

alecst3• 17 years ago

Right. 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.

bk• 17 years ago

Just 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).

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• 17 years ago

From 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_charact...

albertsun2• 17 years ago

It'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.

immad2• 17 years 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 :)

alecst3• 17 years ago

This is called an analogy.

immad2• 17 years ago

I know. I just found the analogy interesting, since I didn't think the killer app term was mainstream.

ewiethoff6• 17 years ago

No, "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-th...

mfhughes4• 17 years ago

Yeah, 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.

ewiethoff6• 17 years ago

I 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.

albertsun2• 17 years ago

So 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.

etal2• 17 years ago

Some 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.

ewiethoff6• 17 years ago

I 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

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.

omouse• 17 years ago

Yeah, the Science & Tech section of The Economist is rarely any good, but the same is true for all other newspapers/magazines. They're journalists/economists/whatever, not actual scientists or techies.

mfhughes4• 17 years ago

> I happen to be very allergic to all raw produce

I guess I'm an idiot, because I don't believe you at all, at least not in the terms you've stated.

If you had a diagnosed autoimmune disorder like Crohn's I would have no trouble believing you but "I'm allergic to raw produce" just sounds like 100% bullshit to me.

Your behavior is typical of attention-whore types who were either neglected/ignored as a child or were lied to extensively by their parents for some reason. Notice how you dwell on other peoples' ("idiotic") reactions to your mind-blowingly hard to believe claim.

cadlin• 17 years ago

It's nice that you question his personal experience because if it's something you haven't heard of, then it obviously must be both bullshit and a consequence of poor parenting.

A little digging on the internet (curiosity over blithe ignorance, oh no!) would return this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_allergy_syndrome

And guess what? Cooking produce probably does help him because it denatures the proteins present in the food. Your post is nothing besides internet tough guy posturing, which I do find entertaining, if a bit annoying.

The more you know!

ewiethoff6• 17 years ago

I apologize for implying that you are an idiot. I was being facetious after taking the news of "denatured proteins" in a happy, light-hearted manner.

As for the allergies, shall I come to your home for a demonstration? You can watch my lips and tongue swell up while I scratch my chin and neck something fierce and spend a couple hours wheezing. It's pretty frightening to watch, and it gets worse over the years. I'm glad I've needed to be hauled to an emergency room only once. I do keep an Epipens on me.

Someday when you are prescribed Epipens by bona fide allergist MDs, you will be handed several brochures. Some of them will comfort you with the statement that many people out there, commonly your most immediate family members, won't believe you and think you're (consciously or subconsciously) making this all up. And some of them are designed for other people to read so that they will take you seriously.

To be honest, living with dangerous allergies--especially a large number of bizarre, dangerous allergies--is mind-blowingly tough, physically, nutritionally, logistically, emotionally, socially, and professionally.

Enough with the heavy stuff. I shall end on what I hope is a more pleasant note. I find it amusing that when I make an occasional trip to a health food store and people ask me about my grocery needs, about 3/4 of them recommend some naturopath or other for some loony muscle test, and the rest are firmly convinced there's no such thing as allergy at all to anything "natural."

We live in a strange world. :-)

etal2• 17 years ago

Yes, that's right. Most plants have a number of defense mechanisms to ward off insects, bacteria, fungus, etc. to avoid being devoured. (Plus other physical barriers, but that's not the problem here.) If a certain animal can eat a certain plant, it's usually because the animal has its own mechanisms for handling the defensive proteins, or hosts bacteria that can do it. You're probably missing some of these.

Heat makes a protein unfold; and unfolded protein still has the amino acids you can metabolize, but no structure, so it can't do anything.

dgordon• 17 years ago

Someone I know is highly allergic to pineapple; eating more than a few bites could easily cause her to suffocate to death without intervention. She didn't realize this for years because she only ate canned pineapple, which doesn't affect her at all. One day she had dried (but not cooked) pineapple and went to bed; fortunately she didn't like the taste and only had a bite or two because she woke up swollen and having a hard time breathing. After that, she was still able to eat canned pineapple without any problems. Whatever it is that causes the reaction must be broken down for good by heating the pineapple to canning temperatures.

wozer• 17 years 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.

krepsj• 17 years ago

The same pays for Czechia and I think for all Central Europe.

tspiteri• 17 years ago

But when people are at work at noon, and their children are at school, it is easier to have the family meal in the evening.

The evolutionary role of cooking

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