The efficient caveman cook

Monday, August 22, 2011 - 14:10 in Earth & Climate

Harvard researchers have found new evidence on the importance of cooking to humans in an unlikely area: the amount of time freed from eating every day. The research found that processing food through cooking freed up literally hours each day not spent “feeding,” which includes ingesting, chewing, and swallowing food. That newfound time could be spent on other pursuits, such as hunting to procure higher-quality foods, creating tools, and socializing. The researchers also tracked anatomical changes in ancient human ancestors through time, looking for clues to when cooking might have arisen. They found that the practice was likely invented not by modern humans, but rather by an early ancestor who passed the practice down from its roots more than 1.9 million years ago. The research, detailed in the Aug. 22 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, used statistical analysis and evolutionary trees to estimate how long people should spend...

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