Some scientists believe we gained our intelligence through cooking

I wash all my fruit off with soapy water. Its not just the shit in the soil I worry about but also all the hands that touch my fruit from there to here.

id prefer to cook shit and have it taste better. enjoy your raw vegetables though.

it wouldn't surprise me if we evolved to handle cooked foods well. As someone else said, food poisoning and food-borne diseases were probably a huge cause of mortality among early man. So it's possible that those who could cook (and digest cooked food better) were the ones who survived and passed along their beneficial genes.

/serious

  On 3/16/2010 at 4:24 AM, lumpenprol said:

it wouldn't surprise me if we evolved to handle cooked foods well. As someone else said, food poisoning and food-borne diseases were probably a huge cause of mortality among early man. So it's possible that those who could cook (and digest cooked food better) were the ones who survived and passed along their beneficial genes.

 

/serious

that's a bit backwards. if anything, early man would have been able to digest uncooked foods better, but the need for that ability died out as cooked food became more common. so technically, yes, we are weaker now in a way. consider the appendix. our diet changed, so we didn't need it anymore, so it didn't matter if people had non-functioning appendixes. hence it evolved into a useless organ because those genes spread through our species.

what i'm trying to say is: ancient man could probably handle cooked foods and noncooked foods fine. but modern man can handle cooked foods best.

That doesn't make sense though. Evolution selects. You don't just "get weaker." If death or sexual selection aren't involved in some way, then there's no evolution.

Please explain to me:

1) how you know early man was able to digest uncooked foods better

2) what the original beneficial function of the appendix was

While early man may have been able to digest uncooked foods better, I see no logical reason for this to have been the case, evolutionarily speaking.

I just thought of another reason why not cooking things could have been lethal and therefore selected against those who either didn't want to cook or didn't have the proper enzymes to handle cooked food. Poison. Lots of plants and such contain natural poisons that I imagine often break down when cooked (look at acorns for example). People who couldn't handle cooked foods = dead.

i thought evolution was something that took tens of thousands of years to make any noticable difference anyway.

  On 3/16/2010 at 4:41 AM, messiaen said:

i thought evolution was something that took tens of thousands of years to make any noticable difference anyway.

yes. but we've had fire for a long time.

how long exactly though?

*checks watch*

according to teh google, 2 mil years ago or thereabouts. Paleolithic era.

  On 3/16/2010 at 4:39 AM, lumpenprol said:

That doesn't make sense though. Evolution selects. You don't just "get weaker." If death or sexual selection aren't involved in some way, then there's no evolution.

 

Please explain to me:

1) how you know early man was able to digest uncooked foods better

2) what the original beneficial function of the appendix was

 

While early man may have been able to digest uncooked foods better, I see no logical reason for this to have been the case, evolutionarily speaking.

 

I just thought of another reason why not cooking things could have been lethal and therefore selected against those who either didn't want to cook or didn't have the proper enzymes to handle cooked food. Poison. Lots of plants and such contain natural poisons that I imagine often break down when cooked (look at acorns for example). People who couldn't handle cooked foods = dead.

1) i'm assuming that they had to have been able to digest uncooked foods better. we can't do it very well now and, before fire, early man could only eat uncooked foods. so either they had a high mortality rate or they evolved to handle uncooked foods. now, when fire came into play, all those characteristics that helped them digest uncooked foods became largely irrelevant, so even humans that couldn't eat uncooked foods survived just fine and spread their weaker genes, etc.

basically, i don't see how you'd need some other method of digestion for cooked foods. maybe that's where i'm confused? like, i'm thinking, for instance, my dog can eat raw meat and cooked meat, but i can only eat cooked meat, otherwise i become sick. does my dog get sick from cooked meat? no. so there's a difference in the ability to eat uncooked food. see what i mean?

2) what wikipedia says: "It may be a vestigial organ of ancient humans that has degraded down to nearly nothing over the course of evolution. Evidence can be seen in herbivorous animals such as the koala. The cecum of the koala is very long, enabling it to host bacteria specific for cellulose breakdown. Human ancestors may have also relied upon this system and lived on a diet rich in foliage. As people began to eat more easily digested foods, they became less reliant on cellulose-rich plants for energy. The cecum became less necessary for digestion and mutations that previously had been deleterious were no longer selected against. These alleles became more frequent and the cecum continued to shrink."

i can't really offer any other information, but that's basically what i'm saying about uncooked foods.

disclaimer: i'm not a biologist, i'm just saying that what you said didn't make much sense to me. maybe you could show me how i'm wrong, because i might be having a lapse in thinking.

also, i must've used the word uncooked like twenty times in this post.

  On 3/16/2010 at 4:39 AM, lumpenprol said:

That doesn't make sense though. Evolution selects. You don't just "get weaker."

define "weaker". it would be more accurate to say we adapted to suit our environment, and learned to adapt our environment to suit us, surely. it's a very long, slow feedback loop (at least on human timescale). and we are at a point where some evidence of our ancestry (the odd vestigial tail or webbed foot, the appendix) is still there. in fact, pick any point far into the future and there almost certainly be evidence of evolutionary ancestry there.

  On 3/16/2010 at 4:55 AM, Hoodie said:

1) i'm assuming that they had to have been able to digest uncooked foods better. we can't do it very well now and, before fire, early man could only eat uncooked foods. so either they had a high mortality rate or they evolved to handle uncooked foods.

I suspect they had a pretty damn high mortality rate. I actually buy that early man was probably better able to digest uncooked foods, esp if the appendix helped us be more like ruminants with their extra stomachs and such. We're describing the same phenomenon. You're saying we've evolved away from raw foods so it's too late to go back now, but that makes it sound like cooking food was just some sort of accident that happened and now we're stuck with it. I think there must be a reason why people who cooked their foods had a better survival rate, either because they were intelligent enough to use fire, or their bodies had digestive systems that could handle cooked food, or some combination of the above. Perhaps it is just incidental as you say, but my guess is:

- cooking food removes bacteria

- cooking food gives it a longer shelf-life, I imagine those little nomadic cro-magnon guys with packs full of lizard jerky

- cooking food removes toxins and poisons

- cooking food allows you to impress a mate and get laid (half joking)

  On 3/16/2010 at 4:55 AM, Hoodie said:

basically, i don't see how you'd need some other method of digestion for cooked foods. maybe that's where i'm confused? like, i'm thinking, for instance, my dog can eat raw meat and cooked meat, but i can only eat cooked meat, otherwise i become sick. does my dog get sick from cooked meat? no. so there's a difference in the ability to eat uncooked food. see what i mean?

I see what you're saying, but you can also eat raw meat. You might get trichinosis or salmonella or toxoplasmosis, but then I suspect those risks are kind of overblown. I bet you can eat most things raw. I'll wager wild animals are susceptible to some of these things too...

Anyhow, I completely see what you're saying, I'm just asking what could be the benefit of cooking food? Troon is saying it destroys nutrients etc so if there's no upside why did we evolve away from eating all raw food, to eating more cooked food? I'm guessing the upside is significant enough that it actually had an impact on evolution, though you're right it's possible it was just a by-product of increased socialization (hanging out around the fire) and the fact that shit just tastes good cooked.

  On 3/16/2010 at 4:59 AM, kaini said:

  On 3/16/2010 at 4:39 AM, lumpenprol said:

That doesn't make sense though. Evolution selects. You don't just "get weaker."

 

define "weaker". it would be more accurate to say we adapted to suit our environment, and learned to adapt our environment to suit us, surely. it's a very long, slow feedback loop (at least on human timescale). and we are at a point where some evidence of our ancestry (the odd vestigial tail or webbed foot, the appendix) is still there. in fact, pick any point far into the future and there almost certainly be evidence of evolutionary ancestry there.

yeah, agreed. I mean evolution selects for beneficial things, but the things that are irrelevant or outdated can hang around provided they don't impede anything.

this reminds me of that other discussion we had about why we're not covered with hair. I still don't understand this. If one takes Hoodie's line of logic then creating clothing allowed both hairy and non-hairy people to survive, but if that's the case why aren't there still fully hairy people today? Or perhaps there are, look at Robin Williams. Still, seems a bit odd.

troon: you can disagree all you'd like - potatoes, carrots and tomatoes all release more nutrients when cooked.

I know we shouldn't use wikipedia as a source, but since this is the internet it'll do:

Potato

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato#Nutrition (and please read the following section on "Toxicity")

Carrots:

http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/nutrition.html#raw

From http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=21

  Quote

Carrots are delicious eaten raw or cooked. Beta-carotene is not destroyed by cooking; in fact, cooking breaks down the fiber, making this nutrient and carrots' sugars more available, thus also making them taste sweeter. Take care not to overcook carrots, however, to ensure that they retain their maximum flavor and nutritional content.

Tomato

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato#Modern_uses_and_nutrition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato#Safety

I have nothing against raw vegetables, and enjoy salads often. If salads were black people some of my best friends would be salads.

Also here is a joke about potatoes:

I think if you can fine tune your diet to the most efficient essentials then the rest will follow as your body's not having to process the shit.

I think we gain our intelligence and longevity more from the nutritional awareness of proper scientific study however as Troon says where's there's money to be made from the masses it can be a minefield of misinformation and BS.

Lets face it modern eating in the civilised world is more about indulgence, bad habits and money making with your average Joe not really caring what he consumes because as long as everyone else is doing the same thing then it can't be wrong can it?

  On 3/15/2010 at 10:42 PM, troon said:

  On 3/15/2010 at 9:58 PM, patternoverlap said:

  On 3/15/2010 at 9:00 PM, troon said:

i have to disagree with you on this one. cooking adds nothing to food, it only detracts from the value of food.

there might be some bickering about the percentages, but saying that food is improved nutritionally

in any way by cooking it is incorrect.

 

now, many foods are more enjoyable cooked and this may hold sway over our wantings to come to terms with the facts

in this very controversial matter.

 

cooking is a human adaptation on an intended design. somewhat akin to driving or many other examples of things

that seem to be advantages that then detract from our health and our functions in this world as they were originally intended.

 

Types the guy sitting in a city somewhere in a house at his computer looking at the internet. All very natural and what was "originally intended.''

 

just because we might not be living what is entirely correct does not mean

we should not continue to try to know what is and strive for it.

 

there are many ways i live my lifestyle that are very conducive to change in this world.

 

it sounds to me that you are saying that we should not even try and those of us who speak

about these kinds of things should just stfu. i think that is a narrow perspective and quite counterproductive.

 

i for one will continue to try to see the truth and be the truth that i want to see.

My point is that the word "correct" comes off as sanctimonious and egotistical. You can keep looking for this "correct" way to live all you like, but don't try to tell me that there is some "correct" way that everyone should follow.

"and be the truth that I want to see" is a very telling statement.

'correct' is the better way of doing things

It's a rather loaded word.

  Quote

Definitions of correct on the Web:

 

make right or correct; "Correct the mistakes"; "rectify the calculation"

right: make reparations or amends for; "right a wrongs done to the victims of the Holocaust"

chastise: censure severely; "She chastised him for his insensitive remarks"

compensate: adjust for; "engineers will work to correct the effects or air resistance"

discipline: punish in order to gain control or enforce obedience; "The teacher disciplined the pupils rather frequently"

free from error; especially conforming to fact or truth; "the correct answer"; "the correct version"; "the right answer"; "took the right road ...

decline: go down in value; "the stock market corrected"; "prices slumped"

adjust: alter or regulate so as to achieve accuracy or conform to a standard; "Adjust the clock, please"; "correct the alignment of the front wheels"

in accord with accepted standards of usage or procedure; "what's the right word for this?"; "the right way to open oysters"

treat a defect; "The new contact lenses will correct for his myopia"

right: correct in opinion or judgment; "time proved him right"

i feel pretty nutrienty right now after my bacon and eggs breakfast. who wants to arm wrestle.

  On 3/16/2010 at 2:27 AM, troon said:

 

meats and dairy's are the real problem. i would even go so far as to say that the meat and dairy that is accompanying fruits and vegetables,

not the fruits and vegetables themselves is what makes people sick in a large percentage of the instances of illness that

we hear about and experience.

ah i see. i actually agree with that. didn't realise you were a vogon vegan

i was cooking burgers just now, and i remembered this thread.

do you know how they perform the lab tests that determine how many "calories" are in something? they burn it, in a tuned machine, that measures the temperature output.

for greens, roughage, it's hard for us to break them down. we don't burn shit like a calorimeter. digesting things takes ENERGY!! it's easy to overlook, since we digest things in order to extract energy... but the process is not 100% efficient... and it is more efficient for some foods, than others.

if cooking food breaks down cell walls (does it? this i do not know) than i can see us getting more nutrition out of cooked food than raw.

the real reason i cook my food, though, is to avoid tapeworms and food poisoning.