The smaller the intestines in primates, the larger the brain. The growth of the brain in our ancestors is due to the fact that they began to eat cooked food instead of raw, thereby “allowing themselves” to reduce the intestines, and at the same time the jaws, turning into Homo erectus similar to us. Such a curious theory is put forward by the British primatologist and anthropologist Richard Wrangham.
The smaller the intestines in primates, the larger the brain. The growth of the brain in our ancestors (Homo habilis) is due to the fact that they began to eat cooked food instead of raw, thereby “allowing themselves” to reduce the intestines, and at the same time the jaws, turning into a Homo erectus similar to us. Such an unexpected theory of evolution is put forward by the author, simultaneously rejecting a raw food diet as not suitable for the human body. He himself, by the way, is a vegetarian, although he once chewed raw meat, checking why chimps add different leaves to it (and found out that it chews faster). Studying the life of these primates, our closest relatives, in natural conditions, Wrangham personally tried almost everything they eat. It turned out that most of their diet for humans is unpleasant or completely inedible. Which served as another proof of how far we have gone along the evolutionary ladder. But not only did cooking lead to brain enlargement! It also created the foundations of social life: “The contrast between eating in communion and in solitude is especially pronounced among hunter-gatherers, for whom cooking is a highly social act, in contrast to the process of eating raw foods. Outside the camp, people usually fortify themselves with raw food … which everyone collects and eats himself, without sharing with others. They prepare food mainly in the camp and then share it with members of their family or, during the festivities, with other families. Also, from the fascinating story of the British, you can learn how marriage relations are established with the help of food and how the assimilation of nutritious protein differs from the digestion of a real steak. The only thing you can’t find there are recipes.
Translation from English. Evgenia Kanishcheva, Pavel Goldin. ASTREL, CORPUS, 336 p.