Cooking makes humans intelligent.

It’s a pet hypothesis that interesting food makes interesting (and interested) people.  There seems to be a correlation between interesting people and their interest in food and cooking.  People who appreciate variety in food and who can play in the kitchen seem to be that little bit more passionate about life.  … well, that’s the hypothesis.

And now for the science.  At the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting, scientists examined the role of cooking in human evolution.  Cooking is universal among humans and particular to humans in the web of life.  Cooking benefits humans in three important ways: It breaks down starch into more digestible size molecules.  It denatures protein so that it can be digested and reconstituted more easily.  And it softens it making it easier to digest, thus requiring less energy to be digested.

So enjoy food and let’s get cooking!

See the review by the Economist here.

AAAS news report here.

Cooking up bigger brains.

Recipes from the past 2 millennia here.

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