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.
The evolutionary role of cooking
11–20 of 32 posts
Re: The evolutionary role of cooking
#12>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.
Re: The evolutionary role of cooking
#13Stating 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…
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)Re: The evolutionary role of cooking
#14>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.
The same pays for Czechia and I think for all Central Europe.
Re: The evolutionary role of cooking
#15>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.
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.
Re: The evolutionary role of cooking
#16Stating 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…
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...
Re: The evolutionary role of cooking
#17Stating 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…
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...
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.
Re: The evolutionary role of cooking
#18I 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…
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.
Re: The evolutionary role of cooking
#19I 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…
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.
Re: The evolutionary role of cooking
#20I 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…
> 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.