Comments on: BBQ Begets Bigger Brains

By: Gord Wait

Gord Wait — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:03:48 +0000

I was pondering your comments on the bias towards women being the cooks in the family, even in very balanced societies, and came up with what seems like a compelling thought experiment.

Start out with two separate tribes, one where the woman is the hunter (and the man stays home to cook) and the other is the opposite.

If the woman has just had a baby, she has to take it hunting with her (to breast feed), now if she’s killed (hunting being a likely higher risk activity) the child dies with her, and evolutionary biologist would call that a bad idea.

In the other case, the woman is already tied down for the first few years of birth, and from a genetic point of view the husband is expendable once he has fathered the child.

Thus, a genetic bias towards the primary caregiver adopting the role of food prep & storage.

Fascinating subject, I hope to get your book for my summer vacation reading next week!

Gord Wait

By: justine raphael

justine raphael — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:32:31 +0000

The smart thing to do is to eat local unprocessed foods, not to adhere to a diet unnatural to humans out of fear stemming from our modern mishandling of the food.

By: BlueHornet

BlueHornet — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:01:12 +0000

This looks cool so far, what’s up people?
If there’s anyone else here, let me know.
Oh, and yes I’m a real person LOL.

Bye,

By: dk

dk — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:05:14 +0000

Richard: Thanks so much for joining us. We’re looking forward to hearing about your research and your adventures, in the Congo and elsewhere.

By: Richard Wrangham

Richard Wrangham — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:03:36 +0000

Thanks to all who sent in comments about Catching Fire, and dietary questions. Nutrition is a fascinating area because even though there is so much recent science, there are still so many unanswered questions – such as, how much difference is there in the caloric value of raw food vs. cooked food. More to come!!!

By: Richard Wrangham

Richard Wrangham — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:46:21 +0000

I am not vegetarian, but it is 32 years since I have eaten mammals except for twice under really unusual circumstances. My non-mammal-eating has nothing to do with my research on food. I just prefer not to eat anything that I would not kill.

By: VS

VS — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:55:59 +0000

Prof, are you vegetarian?

By: Richard Wrangham

Richard Wrangham — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:07:32 +0000

Leanne, I think this is an important question and I would like to see nutritionists jump in. I have been surprised to find that some nutritionists do not accept the idea that soft foods give us more energy (I think their recalcitrance is just because they have not really thought much about it) so perhaps a first point is that we can use this research as a way to get concepts of nutritional science straight. As far as practical lessons go, your inference about junk food and fruit/veg is basically right, but Catching Fire shows more precisely than usual what is wrong with a lot of junk food: it gives you more calories than you think (from standard nutritional wisdom) that you are getting. So that should be helpful. Personally I would like to see a move towards a new form of calorie-counting that takes account of the physical state of the food, i.e. whether it is raw or cooked, how mashed up it is, etc.
What processed food does NOT lead to roughly 100% digestibility, plus low costs of digestion? That is an interesting question. Maybe others can suggest some. Dried meat? There is no research that I know of to check the answer. Some breads with large whole grains? The answer could easily be “none”.

By: Richard Wrangham

Richard Wrangham — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:58:13 +0000

Krista – I have never heard of the idea that the use of psychoactive plants paved the way for cooking – not sure what the idea would be – “Hey Zonker, I got an idea, let’s put some of our food on the fire!! Wheee!!!”? Some animals eat alcohol-rich fruit and appear to like it, so human use of mind-altering substances is less unusual than cooking. I suspect meat would have been the first item cooked because it takes a long time to chew compared to plant foods, so it was more likely that the first fire-users had some in their hands (waiting to chew it) while they were near a dying fire… and dropped pieces in by accident. But anything is possible. The fact that chimpanzees find tree-seeds naturally cooked by bush-fires suggests that the first fire-users could have taked those sorts of seeds and put them in the path of an oncoming bushfire.

By: david kohn

david kohn — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:09:40 +0000

Bonobos don’t cook at all. Hours of eating — it sounds dull.