Akolade: Also it decreased the amount of energy needed to digest, increasing available energy for the brain.
Simplifiedmadness: So we used to be Orcs?
cock_pussy_up: And now cheap high calorie food is leading to an expansion of gut size. Heeeeeey yooooo.
IronicMetamodernism: The ancients recognised the importance of fire. Most cultures had gods of fire and there are numerous legends of the various fire-bringers; Prometheus, Maui, Coyote.
Fire is one of the most important tools humans have yet discovered and it has changed us physically and socially.
herbw: We have to be careful of oversimplifying events, esp. in the complex systems which are our bodies.
It was Not the discovery of fire, but the means to create it and sustain the burning for a long time, esp. by stocking up on dry burnable materials. Fire has been seen since the earliest times on the earth, but esp. now with an O2 atmosphere. We did NOT progress by “discovering fire”, but in the remarkable series of the means, methods, tools, devices and ways of process thinking (models), which made it easier, & more efficient over time to Harness and create fire.
That’s the specific human quality which is created by our cortical columns which process information from our senses, and which create controllable, usable, efficient, & thus practical methods, which mark us, specifically, as human.
Heat does a LOT of things, not just make food softer, because if cooked too much, it gets harder and harder to chew. So we know just how much to cook it with just how much heat, as those who cook weenies over the fire, show. Same with marshmallows.
It’s also the heat in the foods which are created, so our bodies don’t have to produce the heat to warm it up, either. Hot meals on a cold day makes a lot of metabolic and efficiency sense, does not? It’s least energy. using heat sources to warm the food.
Overall, the benefits of fire heating food are least energy outcomes, which save us so much lost time, energy, and extra food and movements, that they create surplus energy, food, which can be recycled through our systems and create growth. Efficiency, least energy creates growth. That’s the key to understand why AND how at the deepest levels, fire and its uses, and manifold ways it’s now created and used has benefited mankind. Least energy rules of the universe.
It also warms us on colder days, and dries us out when we’re wet, is not? Pneumonia and illness prevention is a good thing. And we don’t have to eat so much to stay warm, either!!!
food preservationwith smoking and drying out food eith heat,also works. Canning food means we can effectively steriliae the food so it doesn’t spoil. Yet another VIKP which needs to be made. We become more and more independent of the growing seasons, and can live in a vastly wider range of climates, as well. Even Antarctica!!!a
Also, heat can very much sterilize and kill a Lot of bacteria, viruses and other pathogens, so that we can avoid getting sick. It also can kill the parasites such as worms (why we cook pork very well, due to porcine worms, that is trichinosis). Cooking chicken well eliminates a lot of the salmonella, and other diarrheal agents which can be found in many foods.
So, a VERY great many advantages occur when we use fire to cook food, NOT just digestion and softening. The heat also breaks down the cellulose fibers in plants, making the nutrients more available for absorption. This is the “surface area effect”. The smaller the particles (which is why we chew them at least), so they are better absorbed.
For the same reasons, we mill grains into flour because by doing so, it can feed 2-3 times as many people than simply chewing up the raw grains of corn, wheat, rice, etc. This is why the native American in the Sierras before any Euros found them, were grinding up acorns into flour at the Indian Grinding Rocks park. It fed a LOT more people with the same amount of acorns. Higher populations, less inbreeding, more defenses possible. Survival went way up, and they proliferated and grew.
http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=553
There is a LOT going on to diet besides heating food, as well,
As far as gut size we are omnivores, so our intestines where the food is absorbed are much, much longer than carnivores, yet shorter than the very long intestines of the plant eating mammals. We are omnivorous. & that accounts for our gut lengths, not the heating of the food.
Really, you know, thinking about the bigger, broader, complex systems events ongoing give a much better, and far, far more complete picture than linear thinking. And complex systems and process thinking ARE likely state of the art (SOA).
https://jochesh00.wordpress.com/2016/07/10/the-limits-to-linear-thinking-methods/
indoninja: Documentary about it….
soparamens: …Fact known by every primary school kid around.
richchigga21: So if that’s true do the tribals on the sentinel island have large teeth and stomachs?
belizehouse: The discovery of ice also influenced human evolution. It forced us to invent pants and socks.
averagejoereddit50: Just listened to a BBC program on similar subject- influence of culture on evolution. One speaker says use of fire moved digestion outside the stomach and consequently we have evolved so that we are unable to subsist exclusively on raw food.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0135z1m
SuperValets: Til the guy who posted this wasn’t paying attetion in school
woodendolphin: Don’t lead with this fact if ever you are trying to appear intelligent on a first date. Let her do the talking and nod whenever she pauses for breath.
MagicStar77: What about diseases from raw meat?
hardestnuts: Take THAT, raw food proponents!
ARG09: Does this mean that dogs will start to grow smaller teeth because of dog food, just like our teeth reduced in size due to cooking food which lead to easier to chew?
BioBanane: learned that 5 years ago in history lesson…
Turok876: Thumbnail reminded me of Trump taking a sip from his water bottle.
SleepyKnight1: The Expensive Tissue hypothesis is a goldie
steelwoolhelmet: This is my fact I enjoy telling!
ThatsJeem: That illustration looks like Trump drinking water
JammieDodgers: How did easier to eat food cause people to evolve smaller teeth?
MagentaLove: There’s a really good book on the subject called Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham.
Boingoloid: There’s a great show about this premise, it’s called Cooked. Might still be on Netflix
adam_demamps_wingman: I think we found cooked food in forest fires and grass fires.
We also found fire in forest fires and grass fires. Carrying embers is an amazing way of preserving found fire.
Now the invention of human-made fire from scratch. That’s a BIG DEAL to me.
RUBI44: And allowing us to eat types of good we just can’t eat raw. Don’t forget about brain developement
Carsair: Um..duh?
whatIsThisBullCrap: This has been well know and wildly believed for hundreds of years, and likely even by some peoples thousands of years ago. It’s not just some researchers suggesting it
easybs: No way, youre saying that adding new food types to an animals diet will ultimately affect the growth, evolution, and lifespan?
Reeena: Joe rogan
ricked_ways: I also saw in a documentary that this coupled with the visual stimulation and relative sense of safety assosciated with fire (due to possible predators tending to avoid it) allowed for early humans to actually rest and withdraw from the constant stress of having to look out for predators, which allowed their minds to focus on things other than basic survival (giving birth to something akin to imagination). Not sure how accurate this was, it was an older doc I saw a long time ago, but a cool idea none the less.
ClandestineMovah: There is a really accessible book which covers subjects like this. It’s highly recommended:
A Brief History of Humankind – Yuval Noah Harrari
curehead: Which countries/ peoples discovered it first and how quickly did it spread ?
nemorina: They may have used fire first to keep predators at bay then one day…..
1infamousDude: So one day an ape/human has just killed an animal and is eating the meat. It looks over to it’s side and sees a small fire nearby. Its curiosity causes the ape/human to go over to the fire and check it out. Suddenly, by shear chance the ape/human carefully puts a part of its meat on the burning fire and waits. After some time the ape/human retrieves the meat from the fire without harming himself/herself. Miraculously the meat is not overcooked and is also perfectly suitable for the ape’s/human’s stomach acid. The ape/human tastes something amazing and decided to do this for the rest of its life because it is something good. It also decides to teach any other apes/humans around because it knows that ‘sharing is caring’ and it wants to help out its fellow apes/humans.
I have several questions from this scenario … if the apes/humans already evolved to the point where their sromach, stomach acids, and indigestive system were already suitable for eating uncooked meat, then why would it have any desires to change anything about the meat that it’s eating? Second, has this ape/human had any experience with fire before? If it was his/her first time, how would it know to be careful with the fire in order to not get burned? If it did get burned from past experience, why would it choose to interact with fire again? Because it’s trying to be brave? If that’s the case, why would it put it’s meat – currently it’s ONLY source of food – on the fire? The ape/human doesn’t know what’s going to happen to the meat so how would it know the outcome would be positive? Because fire gives off a pleasant source of heat so the ape/human decided to get close to it? But then that again makes me wonder ‘why risk putting your food on something that you don’t know could destroy it or make it better?’ Since evolution is all about adaptation (which requires a level of intelligence) and miraculous mutations which only have positive outcomes, how would the ape/human that is currently still evolving KNOW to put his meat on the fire and WHEN to retrieve the meat. Unless the ape/human retrieved the meat when the fire went out, yet that would still mean that the meat cooked for the PERFECT time – which is all about chance. ALSO, I was told by my biology teacher that ‘small mutations take millions of years to happen’ which makes me wonder how much time was left for the apes/humans teeth to evolve? AND why would the teeth & stomach acids & indigestive system need to evolve if it is already working and digesting meat?
furb_radish: I thought the thumbnail was Trump drinking water.
-Anyar-: Did you think the discovery of fire was because it looked cool?
KennyBoy2000: also heard about this a long time ago. The article is from 2013.
But every fact is news to someone!
HiGodItsMeAnotherGod: More proof that evolution is a myth. Anybody knows that eating delicious hot food CONTRIBUTES to an INCREASE in gut size. Thank the lord we finally have a godly man in the White House who will stop teaching this nonsense in schools.
xx_deleted_x: FALSE…teeth and guts did not “shrink” because there was suddenly less of a need for them. Evolution is DRIVEN by pressure & time…with a pressure to form smaller teeth and gut, this wouldn’t have happened. No pressure (or advantage), then there would be no need to adapt. We could have just eaten cooked food with large teeth/guts.
Example: Dark-skinned humans leave Africa and no longer need dark skin in places like northern Europe. So their skin gets lighter, right? NO…a pressure to have lighter skin must exist to drive this change…so far, that pressure COULD be Vitamin D, where access to more Vit D (via sunlight not being blocked by dark skin) was essential (or even advantageous) for life.
malachilenomade: AKA: We got outrageous gov’t funding to tell you something that elementary school more than likely taught you decades ago.