Why We Evolved

There are lots of theories about what caused human evolution. Here’s a new one: cooking!

When humans invented cooking, it increased the number of calories they consumed, since heat breaks down cellulose in plants, making them more digestible and releasing the nutrients. Before the discovery of fire, we would have had to forage for 9 hours a day in order to get the same number of calories.

This could be the reason that other primates, such as gorillas, may have bodies 3 times larger than ours, but still have much smaller brains, despite the fact that they spent almost 8 hours a day foraging for food.

In the October 22nd edition of the Guardian, neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houvel writes:"Why are the largest primates not those endowed with the largest brains as well? Rather than evidence that humans are an exception among primates, we consider this disparity to be a clue that, in primate evolution, developing a very large body and a very large brain have been mutually excluding strategies, probably because of metabolic reasons.

"We may thus owe our vast cognitive abilities to the invention of cooking–which, to my knowledge, is by far the easiest and most obvious answer to the question, ‘What can humans do that no other species does?’"

Modern man has to worry about getting TOO MANY calories, rather than too few. Have your own cooking skills made you fat? Anne Strieber is here to help, with her famous diet book, which has been rduced in price from $5 to $3 so that YOU can afford to reduce too!