This article in NY times this week.. seems backwards to me and it stirs up a lot of issues and questions.

[www.nytimes.com]

If cooked made us evolve and become smart (which I think I believe)... then why is it better for us, now? Is simple cooked food "brain food"? And, he says cooked food (as in simple-not processed) is better for digestion because it uses less energy?? I thought it was the opposite!? Among other things.. he seems credible and it is interesting. What are your thoughts?

[www.nytimes.com]

ps.. if you have to sign up to access it is is really quick and simple.. i did it myself.

He says this:

'and notes that, in one survey, 50 percent of the women on such a diet stopped menstruating. There is no way our human ancestors survived, much less reproduced, on it.'

I wouldn't be surprised if they'd stopped BLEEDING monthly. But the only way this would affect reproduction is if OVULATION had ceased as well. Had 50% of the women stopped ovulating? I'll bet my bottom pound that that was NOT checked.'

If anyone's concerned about this, please see my article here:

[debbietookrawforlife.blogspot.com]

The same man also made the following statement (doesn't look to me as if the NYT has reported it, perhaps because if it had done it would have cast doubts on the credibility of the rest!)

Richard Wrangham of Harvard University, speaking to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (reported in The Economist Feb 2009), describes raw foodists as 'faddists' and says that 'without cooking, the human brain (which consumes 20-25% of the body's energy) can't keep running.'

To those new to raw, please don't be concerned at this article. Sometimes people are SO bugged by raw foodism, for some reason, that they use an extraordinary amount of energy to come up with various theories as to why cooking is a great idea.

The basics of what cooking does to food can be found at my website at
www.rawforlife.co.uk (and of course at many others!).

vegcase and debbie,

I seem to recall someone else posting an excerpt from Mr. Wrangham on this Forum ages ago, which also caused some consternation. He is an anthropological biologist, I believe--not a biochemist or nutritionist--and has,therefore, limited authority on the subject of nutrition, though a great deal on the subject of anthropology. Exhibit A: someone with adequate knowledge of human biophysiology wouldn't equate menstruation with fertility. Exhibit B: someone with adequate knoledge of nutrition wouldn't equate cooking with increasing bioavailability of nutrients. [sigh]

There is actually no categorial scientific evidence that eating cooked food made us smarter. He admits that it's a hypothesis; though I challenge to a duel anyone who disses my precious Charles Darwin--how DARE he?! There are a lot of gaps in the evidentiary record of who ate what, when, and why. There is no control of a society that at mostly raw for eons, as you have painstakingly attempted to discover, debbie. There is no consideration that Wrangham's hypothesis may hinge on ingrained cultural habit, rather than on biogenetic imperative. There is no scientific basis for the phrase,"We are cooks more than carnivores," although it is catchy. So this is just scholarly supposition on Wrangham's part. It certainly isn't the basis for making any kind of sweeping and unscientific statements about the raw foods lifestyle.

This is just supposition on my part, but I smell financial ties to special interests. The quotes I've read from him are just too, uh, hyberbolic, to count as scientific detachment.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2009 02:58PM by Tamukha.

THere is merit in the idea that cooked food enabled natural selection that would not have been possible on a raw diet. If you had the choice between cooked (preserved/processed), meat/eggs/dairy or starving to death (because not enough calories were AVAILABLE from raw sources year round) - hey, cooked and meat will give you an evolutionary advantage!

That doesn't mean, however, that it is the optimal diet. These days I have the incredible luxury of getting enough protein from a variety of raw plant sources from all over the planet, regardless of climate etc. (I believe this possibility is not even 100 years old, at least in a context of a culture that would measure such things).

The upcoming generation is estimated to live shorter than the previous one because of its degenerative life style. Let's talk evolution in that context! (Anyone seen the movie Idiocracy? - highly recommend!)

Prof. Wrangham claims that "cooking increases the amount of energy our bodies obtain from food". And he hypothesises that the extra energy freed up by the cooking process has enabled our brains to grow larger.

In other words, we humans have bigger brains because we cook our food! (Ah hahahahahahahhahahaha!) :p

I can easily accept that cooking our food has had a major influence on the development of our human "civilization". But has energy from cooked foods made our brains bigger?

All primate species have larger brains than other mammals. So how did non-human primates obtain their larger brains without ever having eaten cooked food?

"Energy" is defined as "the ability to do work".

All food molecules originally contain stored (potential) energy. Digestion and cooking are two processes that both break down food molecules - thereby releasing energy.

BUT when food is cooked, much of the energy is released into the air (that's why we can smell it). Energy that's released into the air - during the process of cooking - is not consumed, and therefore, cannot be utilized by our bodies for cell production and function. And it may also be true that the potential energy left over after cooking has been impaired during the cooking process.

To put it simply, dead things don't contain as much energy as living things. (Duh!)

The food molecules of living foods are still intact when we put them in our mouths. Thus, when the molecules are broken down during the process of digestion, all the energy that is released goes into our bodies - instead of into the air. And none of the potential energy has been impaired by cooking. It's still active (alive!); and when freed up by digestion, it's capable of performing all of the cellular functions that have evolved over the span of 4 Billion years (the length of time life has existed on the planet).

Today's humans, with our great big brains, have been on the planet for only 100,000 years. Our human evolution has depended upon an unimaginable number of ancestor species over the course of Billions of years to get to whatever we are today. I think that fact helps to explain why all primates have larger brains.

Did anyone see "The Link" on the History Channel this weekend? The Link is a 47-million-year-old fossil of an immature female primate (with several babyteeth intact). She is considered to be a possible transformational species (a link) between the two major primate branches - pre-simian (lemur) and anthropoid (apes, including humans) - because she has some of the unique structural characteristics of both.

And she can also be directly linked to humans of today. This little girl (named Ida) already had the bone in her ankles that would eventually enable her descendants to walk upright as humans so many millions of years later!

Thus the seeds of our capacity to walk upright may be over 47 million years old.

Ida's last meal was raw fruits, vegetables, and seeds.

And Prof. Wrangham believes that our larger brains evolved as a result of eating cooked food? We primates were most likely already well on our way towards having larger brains long before we ever became humans. There's no reason to believe that cooked foods offer more energy than raw foods, and there's no reason to believe that the energy from cooked foods gave us larger brains.

I personally believe that cooking our food is an experiment that may have been helpful to humans in the (evolutionary) short-term, but will eventually be discarded in favor of helping us to ultimately save ourselves and our planet.

(Gosh, we sure could use more raw food scientists/researchers!)

How can Prof. Wrangham's hypothesis be tested? WE ARE THE TEST. One single generation of long-lived raw foodists, who age without brain/nerve afflictions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease will prove Dr. Wrangham's hypothesis to be incorrect!

So be healthy raw fooders! Eat well! Get your exercise! Be kind! LIVE LONG AND PROSPER! Our planet, our descendents, and all the other critters may seriously depend upon it!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2009 11:02PM by suncloud.

Even if cooked food did help our brains grow thousands of years ago, something tells me that in the modern world our brains continue to develop as a result of things like computers, schools, science, books, etc. and that cooked food was phased out of the process a long time ago. It's almost as if he's suggesting that cooked food is the missing link much like Terence McKenna says that psylocybin mushrooms are the missing link. For me, the good news in this book is that someone feels that alternative diets are becoming enough of a threat to pay someone to write something like this. On the other hand, it's pretty scary that this is what's being upheld as conventional wisdom these days.

Tamukha Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> vegcase and debbie,
>
> I seem to recall someone else posting an excerpt
> from Mr. Wrangham on this Forum ages ago, which
> also caused some consternation. He is an
> anthropological biologist, I believe--not a
> biochemist or nutritionist--and has,therefore,
> limited authority on the subject of nutrition,
> though a great deal on the subject of
> anthropology. Exhibit A: someone with adequate
> knowledge of human biophysiology wouldn't equate
> menstruation with fertility. Exhibit B: someone
> with adequate knoledge of nutrition wouldn't
> equate cooking with increasing bioavailability of
> nutrients.
>
> There is actually no categorial scientific
> evidence that eating cooked food made us smarter.
> He admits that it's a hypothesis; though I
> challenge to a duel anyone who disses my precious
> Charles Darwin--how DARE he?! There are a lot of
> gaps in the evidentiary record of who ate what,
> when, and why. There is no control of a society
> that at mostly raw for eons, as you have
> painstakingly attempted to discover, debbie. There
> is no consideration that Wrangham's hypothesis may
> hinge on ingrained cultural habit, rather than on
> biogenetic imperative. There is no scientific
> basis for the phrase,"We are cooks more than
> carnivores," although it is catchy. So this is
> just scholarly supposition on Wrangham's part. It
> certainly isn't the basis for making any kind of
> sweeping and unscientific statements about the raw
> foods lifestyle.
>
> This is just supposition on my part, but I smell
> financial ties to special interests. The quotes
> I've read from him are just too, uh, hyberbolic,
> to count as scientific detachment.


I have to agree with your "financial ties" supposition. I've noticed more and more over the years that traditional guardians of knowledge like Harvard and the New York Times are not sources to rely upon when looking for that wonderful concept we call "truth."

EricJohannes,

Sad to say, it pays to be cynical sometimes : (