So when you personally compare todays raw food with the food a savannah primate may have eaten to survive, that is an unrealistic comparison. I found the radio lecture to be rather misleading without including underripe and other coarse fibrous foods, and the level of starvation thos savannah primates must have adapted to.

I think it makes sense that our transition into introducing cooked foods into the diet allowed for more advanced evolution (alongside many other factors of course).
However I am skeptical to believe it is anywhere reasonable to say that we are now fully adapted to eat cooked foods in PLACE of raw foods (in particular botanical fruits – INCLUDING nuts, seeds, vegetables like cucumber etc) as 100% of the diet. Cooking is KNOWN to destroy/reduce MOST of the nutrients (some nutrients like iron can be more easily absorbed possibly by some cooked foods), and I don’t think the human body could endure a loss of so many nutrients without some sort of raw food source regularly – it’s the reason we have such a high rate of degenerative diseases and cancers in developed nations!

I lived most of my life with as many would call the S.A.D (Standard American Diet), which is obviously an abundance of cooked foods. Of course the S.A.D is obviously different than the cooked foods that humans or our ancestors would have eaten during the first several thousands of years (now we have un-natural foods like processed flours, granulated sugars and concentrated fat and protein sources that come in packages). Alongside an amputation from birth, I suffered some weight problems as well as other health conditions including skin eczema and Staph infection.
Over the past two years I have transitioned into a mostly (about 98%) raw food diet of a large abundance of fresh fruit, veggies, nuts/seeds and the occassional cooked brown rice/quinoa and a nice spicy Thai dish with Tofu for a treat!
Within this transition I am experiencing the best health of my entire life – I am in better physical condition than pretty much everybody I know personally but most importantly this makes me feel good, I have mental clarity, clear skin and haven’t gotten sick SINCE. I’m serious – I am experiencing life that I NEVER would have thought possible. My energy is never-ending and my digestive tract passes with complete ease almost all of the time.

Of course foragers long ago didn’t have the access to abundance of fresh produce (most of the time, that is) that we do today, and cooked foods contain a much higher calorie/energy content which is beneficial in a hunter/gatherer lifestyle…

I’m sure that, at the point of evolution we are at in modern day, our bodies are adapted to IDEALLY having a diet that incorporates a combination of fresh raw and healthy cooked foods. However I believe that our internal components still react best when exposed to the foods that were eaten for the VAST majority of the evolution of LIFE (not just our present humans) – which is RAW life energy.

Anyway, that’s just my experience. I would like to read this book!

Commercial yeast has superseded sourdough leavening in most bakeries, but it’s the slow fermentation that breaks down the phytic acid in grains that inhibits mineral/calcium uptake. Some gluten-intolerant people can eat sourdough.

Dudes (that is inclusive, male and female make ur show possible)

great show most of the time (i don’t remember a rally bad one)

thanks

no really

I mean that.

honest.

trust me.

klay

The best program I’ve ever heard on your station -especially
from ‘On Point’.

Given the vulnerability of the person doing food preparation, would it be reasonable to suspect that they fell into those roles as a result of the male being better equipped to guard and protect the women from other hungry people while they cooked?

Toward the end of the show, Tom – somewhat tongue-in-cheek pointed out the phenonmenon of the modern day male stepping up to the grille – and in fact doing it proactively and willingly. Men also tend to build fires when camping and tend fire places in homes. I wonder if there is not some anthropological reason for all this where men will generally be the one to set and maintain the fire because it is dangerous. In modern homes, men pipe in oil, gas and electricity and turn the cooking over to the women, knowing that everything is safe. But the grill is still an open flame with more danger potential, so do males feel compelled to take charge?

Good show – thanks

However, tha premise of “Catching Fire” also fits well with this theory of evolution because of the increased digestibility of raw sea food. Humans evolving in tidal water areas would have the necessary high protein food more accessible than their non-cooking on land relations. This would allow for the faster development of brain complexity necessaty for evolution.

2. The professor provides a cooked food causation for increased brain size. But
dolphins don’t cook their food yet have developed brains nearly as large as humans.

Perhaps a much simpler reason for increase in brain size, other than the shot of protein, is that we had to figure out how to capture and eat prey animals as a pack. Humans are, lets face it, pitifully equipped to take down a mammoth.

Also in terms of the ability to digest lactose, we’re mammals…we’re born with the enzymes to digest lactose. The problem with your point, is that the reason people become lactose intolerant is because they stop taking in milk as they stop nursing. Not that we’ve evolved the ability to digest lactose since we’ve domesticated livestock.

Climbers overcome this problem by using pressure cookers.