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Cooking made us human

Did the discovery of the possibilities for food processing: roasting, cooking, baking, etc., give the necessary boost to the development of the "thinking man" (Homo Sapiens) from his ancestors? Did cooked/processed food enable the significant growth in the mind of modern man?

Prof. Richard Wrangham, Harvard University. Photo: The university's public relations department
Prof. Richard Wrangham, Harvard University. Photo: The university's public relations department

Did the discovery of the possibilities for food processing: roasting, cooking, baking, etc., give the necessary boost to the development of the "thinking man" (Homo Sapiens) from his ancestors? Did cooked/processed food enable the significant growth in the mind of modern man?

According to Professor Richard Wrangham of Harvard University (Professor Richard Wrangham of Harvard University) and according to many who support him, the answer is... positive!
Cooking/food processing is accepted by us of course and as a fait accompli, a new theory suggests that if we hadn't learned to cook, we would (still) look like chimpanzees and like them spend a large part of our time... chewing. Without cooking, the average person would have to eat about five kilograms of live food that would provide him with enough calories to survive, such a large amount of food means chewing for six hours.

Today it is accepted that the addition of meat to the menu of our ancestors contributed to the growth of the brain and the strengthening of the intellect, since meat is a concentrated source of energy, more concentrated than plant food sources, more energy in less volume allowed our ancestors to devote less time to searching for food and as a result more time to developing social structures/relationships . (Recall that it is known that chimpanzees and bonobos, who are considered vegetarians, take advantage of every opportunity to eat meat and recently there were signs that gorillas also diversify their vegetarian diet with meat).

According to Prof. Wrangham, the change is not only in the "discovery of meat" but in the great change caused by an accidental event in which a bit of meat fell into the fire. Other food, i.e. the beginning of cooking/roasting food products led to the rapid development of the human race.
According to the professor, "cooking improved the quality of food", "the greatest improvement in human evolution".

According to the fossil record of the beginning of the human branch in Australopithecus, these resembled monkeys and had a large stomach that contained a digestive system with long intestines that allowed the digestion of a lot of plant material, accordingly their teeth were large and flat, teeth that were used for grinding and crushing plants, probably the Australopithecus left the forest towards the open prairie ( Savannah), a change that gave him the opportunity to taste the inhabitants of the Savannah, an environmental change that resulted in a change in lifestyle, a change in the menu and as a result anatomical changes.

Eating meat is linked to an evolutionary change that took place about 2.3 million years ago, a change that was manifested in a "more human" appearance, in small and sharp teeth, but most of all in the growth of the brain by 30%, and this is how the first human species, the "skilled man" (Abilis), appears. The next leap brings the human species to the next species, about 1.8 million years ago the species "the upright man" (erectus) appears. The "upright" has a big (more) brain, while the jaws and teeth are small.
In the upright man, the hands were shortened, meaning that the upright man had "proportions" similar to ours, and according to Prof. Wrangham, the upright man learned and knew how to cook. Cooked food does not require a long system to process vegetable matter, therefore the intestines were shortened, short intestines = small stomach, the change in the relationship between the limbs and the (large) abdominal organs means that the upright person not only walked upright, but could also run upright.
Individuals with short intestines could save energy and therefore survive better and produce more offspring. According to other researchers, all of the above changes allowed for a large brain, which means that the upright person was quick and smart.

Cooking breaks down cells, that is, cooking is a kind of "primary digestion", which removes from the stomach a considerable part of the burden of digestion and releases energy, energy directed to the growth of the brain, since the body invests less energy in processing cooked food and receives more energy from it. Therefore, the researchers claim that "as the intestines get shorter (smaller), the brain grows", it was found that shortening the digestive system by 20% was equivalent to growing the brain by 20%.
In the tests it was found that the body invests in processing live food about 25% more energy than the investment in digesting cooked food, therefore, according to the researchers, it is no coincidence that "the person who is considered the smartest among the species is also the only species that cooks".

Two comments
1 Since it is clear to me that there will be many who will jump in and make different claims, I would like to clarify the order of things. the cooking. Eating meat and cooking made it possible: the shortening of the intestines, the reduction of the stomach, and above all directing energy to the growth of the brain. The brain consumes about 20% of the total energy that the digestive system produces, cooking allows saving the energy required for digestion, a saving that is directed to the brain.
These are the events that according to the researchers brought us to this point, there is no attempt to imply or influence vegetarianism, vegetarianism and the like, since the emphasis is on the cooking!

Following the appointment of the "Polytrok" for science at the Ministry of Education and following the voices of support for it from "enlightened" circles, it can be assumed that explanations that clarify the size of the brain as a "masterpiece of a supreme creator" will soon appear in the stories of "scientific" learning in schools, therefore all that is written Up... unnecessary!

For Harvard University's announcement about Prof. Richard Wrangham's book

Comments

  1. The main reason that an elephant has a very large brain, compared to other large animals, is the development of the function of the trunk as a kind of palm, and we know from the human brain how much mental capacity is required for the function of a palm.
    Use of hands is also one of the main reasons for the size of the brain in apes that far exceeds that of large carnivores.
    The general reasons that mammals and birds have much larger brains than reptiles and fish are: the complex evolutionary course these animals have gone through in relation to others.
    When comparing marine mammals to fish, the evolutionary course of mammals is particularly complex, which is why all marine mammals have exceptionally large brains.
    These factors operate in a kind of spiral circles when a change in one factor affects the development of another factor.
    Importance of the ratio between body mass and brain mass exists only in birds, bats, and small mammals.
    When the body mass exceeds about four kg, the above ratio is not important, but only the size of the brain and its structure, in relation to the functional constraints of the animal.
    When we seek to explain the brain sizes in monkeys, and apes including humans, the answers are found mainly in social interaction and the ways of using the hands.
    There is a developmental line from baboons to apes and man, which contains the answer to a not absurd question, why didn't man grow directly from a monkey.

  2. Asaf:
    I didn't understand how your answer to Yair is relevant to what I said.
    I said that the monkeys do not cook even though they have been exposed to roast meat more than once.
    The very control of fire and the ability to cook probably require a bigger brain than they have.
    It is therefore necessary that before humans learned to cook, their brains grew for another reason.

  3. Asaf,
    The question of the ratio between brain mass and body mass, although it has been discussed a lot and mathematical equations have also been developed to formulate the ratio, is not very helpful, and I have yet to see a good explanation that clarifies how important the ratio is for understanding brain fitness and intelligence.
    You didn't address the fact that a chimpanzee's brain is three times bigger than its heart, even though they lived in the same ecology.
    A dolphin has a brain sixty times larger than a shark twice its size, in the same ecology.
    A rhinoceros and a hippopotamus have one-third the body mass of an elephant and one-tenth the brain.
    The brain is like any organ and function in organisms, and its development depends on functional constraints that each species faces during evolution, either at the level of the single organism, or in the group, or in the general ecology.
    Most of the claims made in the article are not new, and especially the cooking claim contains a disregard for fundamental rules of evolution.

  4. End of response in reading comprehension and basic knowledge of data.
    Liair Shimron
    As it is written, the beginning of the transformation by going to Savannah and eating meat...
    It is possible that if chimpanzees went out into the open Savannah, (they accidentally threw meat into the fire and "saw that it was good") they would stand up
    To walk on two legs, one would learn to cook... one would write chimpanzees... and respond,
    To Yair and to others as well
    When measuring the size of an animal's brain to compare it to the size of the animal, when specifying a large brain
    After all, it's a big brain relative to the body weight,
    Now, anyone who made a comparison with elephants, dolphins, whales, etc. will learn the relationships,
    Which brings me to the thought that it is worth checking and comparing the level of intelligence between carnivores
    and nitrifs (vegetarians).
    to the guide of the universe,
    Hummingbirds (colibri) did not grow a huge brain...
    Michael
    There is no doubt that structural changes are caused by many different factors,
    When there are factors that influence more (or less),
    In the above case Prof. Wrangham attributes crucial importance to cooking.
    As for the chimpanzees who will learn to cook... see my response to Yair.

  5. To number 1: "[everyone] who rejects Momo rejects", you are acting like a racist and low-brow snow neadertle.
    I really don't understand how you don't censor offensive comments like that of this brazen and arrogant Lez.

  6. Another stab in the back of a false theory, even though the bbc has already made an entertaining program about it.
    When you read in our article the calculations of the energy conversions of digesting vegetable food and cooked meat, and the redirection of energy from digestion to the needs of the brain, it sounds scientific, with the eye hold of a mathematical equation, which always provokes percolation and contributes to the disabling of independent thinking for many.
    Remember what must be remembered about human evolution. She didn't start with human and chimpanzee common apes. Long before that the apes and baboons had common parents.
    Baboon brain about 130 grams, chimpanzee brain about 400 (and orangutang too). Does the relationship between them remind anyone of anything? For example the relationship between a human brain and a chimpanzee?
    And they lived in the same environmental ecology, (and so did the hominids), only the intragroup ecology changed.
    Perhaps the chimpanzee also cooked, to increase its brain threefold.
    The fact that a Harvard professor presents a theory does not have to confuse us.
    The brain, like every organ and function in all living organisms, developed according to functional constraints. This is a fundamental rule of evolution.
    And if energy is needed for the brain, it can be found both for the brain and for digestion, as happened in a strictly vegetarian elephant (4-7 kg of brain).

  7. This means that in another 2000 years dogs and cats will start some kind of speech, cool!

  8. Doesn't make enough sense. If we continue along this line of thought, the more ready the food entering the body is for digestion, the more free time the brain will have to deal with other issues, i.e. if we had succeeded two million years ago in sucking on a straw of pure sugar, evolution would have blessed us with a monstrous-sized brain. We know where we would be today.

  9. For No. 5:
    Thank you very much for the link, the program is very well done (BBC of course, how could it not be?)
    and conveys the idea in a clear and reliable way. Highly recommended to everyone!

  10. (Usually Yair, but in response to S. - Is it Asaf - or why not identify yourself)
    "Understand?" Understood, and I also referred to the emphasis on cooking, in the comment about growing the Australopithecus and Habilis brain before the start of cooking.
    If the brain of the ancient parents of man and chimpanzee was close to 400 grams (and in fact, maybe less, since the chimpanzee also evolved), then until the appearance of Homo erectus ("the upright"), before cooking, the brain of the subjects in the human lineage grew more than twice!
    Also other changes in the direction of a greater resemblance to sapiens appeared already before cooking, including a certain reduction of the jaws, as indicated in the article!
    The article also does not refer to Ardi's finding, that he had teeth similar to human teeth.
    While we have unequivocal evidence for brain growth without cooking, such as in elephants or dolphins and in all marine mammals, there is no real evidence for the necessity of the effect of cooking on brain growth.
    Food processing obviously had an intense effect on the structure of the digestive system, while the brain, like any other organ, developed as a result of the unique functional constraints of the human lineage.

  11. Yair, the emphasis is on *cooking* the meat. Note! Cooking makes it very easy to get the nutritional benefits of the meat, so the body can get more calories as well as important proteins that are beneficial for development. Of course, not just one factor caused our development, but a combination of factors that influenced each other. After all, our erections contributed to our hands being free for various actions, and the structure of the fingers changed so that we can perform fine motor actions, and the brain had to grow to allow us to learn these complex actions and perform them, or on the contrary, the brain grew and then we could perform these actions With the help of our organs... get it? It's a lot of factors that influence each other in a circular way, positive feedback.
    One of the advantages of our brain is the ability to read a text, if you read to the end you would see that the first comment concerns the fact that the emphasis in this article is on the cooking, and not on eating the meat per se, of course we are not the only carnivore (after all, we are not a carnivore at all, we are omnivores ).

  12. The claims in the article are very old, I heard them already when I was in school many years ago. If eating meat was a reason for brain enlargement, it must be explained why a gorilla that may eat a drop of meat as claimed by the author's source, has twice the brain of a lion, whose weight is 15 percent greater than the weight of a male gorilla. We also had to reason why a dolphin has a brain sixty times larger than the brain of a shark twice its size. Why does a camel whose weight is similar to a large male bear have a third more brain than the bear.
    We also had to explain why the Australopithecus brain grew by 25 percent compared to the chimpanzee-like primitive ape - the chimpanzee had a brain of 400 grams, the Australopithecus 500. Why did the Australopithecus brain grow by 20 percent during the transformation process to Homo bilis, and no one has yet accused these ancient species of using fire and eating meat They had a few.
    The brain grows due to functional constraints, primarily communicative, regardless of nutritional components.

  13. Laurie - It seems to me that Prof. Richard Wrangham does not speak Hebrew. Regarding the topic of the article, there is a direct relationship between the size of the brain and the size of the group and many other theories. The article does not explain how they learned to cook and how the progress was made, things that other theories some of which have been mentioned here explain very well.

  14. A very interesting article. A new and fascinating perspective on the subject. I would love to read more from you.

  15. I have a feeling that everything contributed a little until they reached the current result (something that reminds me of putting a product in a small bag, small and gentle pulls of the bag will do the job but every pull or in this case a sharp turn in a certain direction will cause tearing).
    In any case, this is a process that has extended and is still happening and will happen for tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of years, so that in proportion to time this is possible.
    In my opinion, it should also be added that cooking killed a lot of bacteria that were created from cutting or storing the meat improperly (completely fresh meat is supposed to be sterile provided that on the way you don't collect all kinds of bacteria and dirt on the skin or fur with the two or the knife) which led to a higher survival of individuals that in turn contributed More for the strengthening of society, it may be that this is how the Einstein of the Homo Abilis era survived.
    I also link this to Kirschenbaum's program on Africa, where a tribe that has not yet come out of the Stone Age showed that after hunting an animal, they put it on a fire and roast it on its fur, without butchering it first, which seems strange to me, but it may be that through experience they first destroy the bacteria on the animal Then the meat is less exposed to contamination.

  16. jewel,
    These are not typos, these are mutations, and I hope you know where we would be now without them...

  17. Such a smart article on such a site and so many typos. Digestion is written in E and not in A, to grind is written in T
    And not T. Just insulting the topic of the article...

  18. point,
    Not in the past, but right now, there are so many human-like creatures with small and twisted brains who do not spare themselves any kind of flesh, see themselves as "enlightened" however for them being "human" amounts to being able to take the sweater off the top shelf in the wardrobe.

  19. In my opinion…
    In the past there were vegetarian humanoid beings with small brains, various mutations led to the growth of the brain and subsequently to the understanding in these beings that it is better to let the animals eat the plants, and that they will eat the animals which is actually a plant concentrate.

  20. In the BBC's program Horizon, they made an episode about it called
    BBC.Horizon.2010.Did.Cooking.Make.Us.Human.PDTV.XviD.AC3.MVGroup.org.avi

    Recommend.

  21. I once read an article that looks at the same facts (and some more) from a slightly different angle.
    The claim made there was that the development of the big brain was made possible by a mutation that weakened (yes! actually weakened) the jaw muscles.
    The weakened jaw muscles no longer needed the same massive connection to the skull - a connection that we still find in monkeys and which limits the skull's ability to grow.
    This script explains why cooking was really useful for man (whose chewing ability was impaired) and why it is less important for monkeys.
    The scenario proposed here does not seem so plausible to me, if only for the reason that today's apes have certainly already tasted boiled and roasted meat prepared by humans but have not yet shown any sign as if they intend to start it themselves (what's more, they don't even control fire).

  22. It is possible that one is related to the other, but I heard that walking on two feet is the main contributor to the growth of the brain (the head can bear more weight upright than on all fours) and in addition contributed to changing the structure of the oral cavity so that we actually started talking, unlike monkeys.

  23. There are niches in which a species that fills them disappears and another takes its place.
    This may be the case with the observations you made, but I suggest not jumping to conclusions.

  24. Exactly a week ago, during my visit to the Holy Land, I happened to walk around the streets of Tel Aviv and saw many hominids with big bellies and low foreheads who were constantly chewing something and muttering indistinct things while doing so.
    Is it possible that evolution is like a spinning wheel and not one-sided as we mistakenly tend to think?

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