What Do You Make of This Article?

[fruitandveggies]

My hubby found this article in Scientific American that basically states that they believe cooking food is the reason for human evolution.

Is that okay to post here? I would love to see how our rawbies debunk this!!

Cooking Up Bigger Brains (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=cooking-up-bigger-brains)

[Veganforlife]

I personally think the article is a bunch of spit! Has he read Victoria Boutenko's book, "Green for Life" and HER study on chimps?
Who is he? What is he? Does he have a vested interest in any of the big conglomorates (McSpit's, Burger Barf, etc.).
I think he's full of it! He doesn't know what he's talking about.

side note:

Richard Wrangham is a British primatologist. He is a Professor in Biological Anthropology at Harvard University.

His primary studies include chimpanzee behaviour in Kibale Forest National Park, Uganda. His current interest is the study of human evolution in which he draws conclusions based on the behavioural tendencies of apes. He is the co-author of a book entitled Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence with Dale Peterson. As a graduate student, Wrangham studied under Jane Goodall.[1]

Along with Eloy Rodriguez, Wrangham helped to introduce the concept of zoopharmacognosy.[1]. Wrangham is considered "one of the pioneers of the study of chimp self-medication" [2]

Among the most recent courses he teaches in the Human Evolutionary Biology (HEB) concentration at Harvard are HEB 1330 Primate Social Behaviour and HEB 1565 Theories of Sexual Coercion (co-taught with Prof. Diane Rosenfeld from Harvard Law School).

Wrangham's latest work focuses on the role cooking has played in human evolution.

In March of 2008, he was appointed House Master of Currier House at Harvard College.

[fruitandveggies]

I need to read Boutenko's book! All I know is that I feel like crap when I eat cooked. But that doesn't really convince people who would LOVE to shove the article in my face!

[RawHeaven]

It made me laugh. I stopped reading after the first paragraph*. Although I support science and love it, I don't think he's being objective. And please all you really need to do is look around at our general population's current state of health and compare it to let's say pre-cooked man. Pre-cooked prehistoric man could kick our butts. hahahaaa. If anything his research actually supports why the raw food lifestyle is so healing in my opinion. His energy is probably out of balance with his current diet. Would love to see a picture of him and ask him about his eliminations and general state of health. I'm pretty sure they have blenders in the urban areas of Uganda.

*"Richard Wrangham has tasted chimp food, and he doesn’t like it. “The typical fruit is very unpleasant,” the Harvard University biological anthropologist says of the hard, strangely shaped fruits endemic to the chimp diet, some of which look like cherries, others like cocktail sausages. “Fibrous, quite bitter. Not a tremendous amount of sugar. Some make your stomach heave.” After a few tastings in western Uganda, where he works part of the year on his 20-year-old project studying wild chimpanzees, Wrangham came to the conclusion that no human could survive long on such a diet. Besides the unpalatable taste, our weak jaws, tiny teeth and small guts would never be able to chomp and process enough calories from the fruits to support our large bodies."

[Veganforlife]

I need to read Boutenko's book! All I know is that I feel like crap when I eat cooked. But that doesn't really convince people who would LOVE to shove the article in my face!

YOUR glow, YOUR health improvement, shoving Alissa's book AND Victoria's book in their faces would be enough. Why do you (or anyone) have to prove anything to anybody anyway? I personally don't care what others think. I KNOW that I've cured myself. I KNOW that I feel gr8! I KNOW what I know!
LOL!

Yes, the article did make me laugh too.

But everybody is an "expert" in some fashion or another, right?

*rolls eyes*

[fruitandveggies]

That's true, rawhaven, he's not being objective. I'm wondering (and I'm sure it would have) if we would have evolved anyway and the cooked thing was coincidental. Obviously, our society does real well with cooked food, LOL....:rolleyes:

VFL, yes, I definitely need to look for self-approval only! That's something I need to work on. I'm thinking of my family that would hear things like this and would never accept raw as the right way of life and I have to watch them slowly degrade because of some crock written in a mass publicated magazine. It breaks my little heart!

[petaltothemetal]

I also thought it was funny that right up front he admits he doesn't like what the chimps eat.

He forgot one very big equation into the whole evolvement idea, which is that man has always been an OPPORTUNIST. Man has eaten whatever was available, where ever he lived. Studies of primitive, isolated people done at the turn of the 20th century (when people could still be found who were primitive and isolated!) proved that even that late in our evolution people everywhere ate a wildly different diet... and that they included many more raw and living fermented foods than modern men do today. Women who were pregnant who did not eat the tribe's favored raw or fermented foods were treated as child abusers! The explorers found (I know, it's gross) people who did quite well on raw and fermented meats. Cooking is what is bad. That guy is WAAAAAAY OFF BASE!

I actually met two raw foodists awhile back before it ever occured to me to eat this way. One was a raw vegan foodist who was in his sixties and still ran marathons and the other was a raw meat foodist (who also ate raw veggies) who was ALSO in his sixties and still ran marathons. When I met them, I thought they were both totally bizarre, although I envied them, becaue I, in my thirties, couldn't run a few blocks. I sat next to the guy who ate raw meat out of a bag while we were tending a booth at the state fair. I was totally worried about germs on our brochures and stuff, cause he was eating with his hands. And I wanted to tell the people whose hand he shook to wash up immediately! But I had to admit he was the picture of health, and I was not.