Re:Did our early ancestors boil their food in hot springs?
by masklinn on Sunday September 20, 2020 @05:31AM
(#24532896)
> What I never understood is why cooking was needed by early humans.
It's unlikely that it was needed per-se, but the discovery of cooking would have significantly improved the sanitary conditions of food as well as the available caloric budget, which would allow for later advances. It put calories in the bank, so to speak, or allowed accessing calories otherwise unavailable letting early humans occupy niches or enter ecosystems they couldn't otherwise have.
> The only thing I could think of is that the caloric advantage of digesting meat offered an immediate advantage.
Digesting meat is easier when cooked, it's also much more sanitary leading to lower incidences of disease and lower parasitic loads, translating to higher survival rates & lower ongoing energy use.
Many plant foods are also largely to entirely indigestible to us without cooking, they may have been in use before cooking as e.g. mere fibrous matter, but cooking also made these available as energy sources, or significantly less dangerous.
For instance sweet potatoes are inedible raw but not toxic (unlike cassava) and the sprouts are edible (unlike potatoes), so they might have been consumed from wild forage for the sprouts and as filler (for the tuber) until people stumbled on the ability to cook them and unlock the tuber's stores.
It's unlikely that it was needed per-se, but the discovery of cooking would have significantly improved the sanitary conditions of food as well as the available caloric budget, which would allow for later advances. It put calories in the bank, so to speak, or allowed accessing calories otherwise unavailable letting early humans occupy niches or enter ecosystems they couldn't otherwise have.
> The only thing I could think of is that the caloric advantage of digesting meat offered an immediate advantage.
Digesting meat is easier when cooked, it's also much more sanitary leading to lower incidences of disease and lower parasitic loads, translating to higher survival rates & lower ongoing energy use.
Many plant foods are also largely to entirely indigestible to us without cooking, they may have been in use before cooking as e.g. mere fibrous matter, but cooking also made these available as energy sources, or significantly less dangerous.
For instance sweet potatoes are inedible raw but not toxic (unlike cassava) and the sprouts are edible (unlike potatoes), so they might have been consumed from wild forage for the sprouts and as filler (for the tuber) until people stumbled on the ability to cook them and unlock the tuber's stores.