Cooking: The Trait that Separates Us?

On Netflix right now, there is a documentary series called "Cooked". It is a dynamic look at this most amazing aspect of humanity, an exciting new view on something so truly fundamental. Four elements, Fire, Water, Air, and Earth, provide insight into the incredible facets of cooking itself. The creator of the show makes a radical claim that cooking, something only we do among animals, is what makes us truly human. Apes & primates spend over half their waking hours chewing their food, other animals even more, with complex digestive systems made for digesting tough, pathogen ridden foods. Their lives revolve around the slow process of eating. Biologically our jaw and gut, however, are not made for such laborious chewing & digestion. Our teeth are made for soft food. Our digestive systems are sensitive. Somewhere in our most distant past, our ancestors discovered that by cooking our food we could spend less effort, and less of the day, actually eating. Indeed, cooking has become so ingrained in our biology that many of the foods we eat taste better to us when cooked. I found this so deeply profound that it has changed my entire attitude towards cooking. It is something so elemental to humanity that it may very well be the only thing truly biologically unique to our species. Instead of merely something basic that we hardly think of, cooking is something sacred.

I would love to hear others' thoughts on this matter, for there are many different opinions on every topic. What are people's thoughts on cooking? Does it truly make us human?

Ohhhhh..........this totally got my Anthropologist antenna's wiggling.......

Off to watch this program....

It reminds me of the book "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human" by Richard Wrangham....

I shall report back......

Popcorn and puppy snuggle time!!!

I am all this. Cooking has been: meditation, calming, soul time and a base fundamental all my life. Nothing like making bread, or any chopping and dicing, from scratch to clear the mind, feed the mind, body and soul. It keeps me in touch with the basics of your life. Very simple. Very relaxing. Tasty too!

I dare say if anyone were having a tough time, cooking together in my kitchen would make you feel better. Wine helps too. :laugh:

So far I'm through three of the episodes.

Fascinating. I'll write up my thoughts after I get through all of them.

Dang. This means I'm just a pink monkey

I thought the ability to cook, meat specifically, was already known as fact to be the reason why human intelligence developed?

ren wrote: I thought the ability to cook, meat specifically, was already known as fact to be the reason why human intelligence developed?

It's only known when people become aware of it

The human brain is one of the most energy-intensive parts of the body, we certainly wouldn't be able to have developed to the level of intelligence if we hadn't been better equipped to extract such energy from our food.

Cooking kills germs and makes foods safer to eat and easier to digest, our digestive system in't as resilient as carnivores.