Review of Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human
by Richard Wrangham
(Basic Books, 312 pages, $26.95, June, 2009)
Reviewed by Dr. Fred Bortz
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Review copyright 2009 by Alfred B. Bortz, all rights reserved.
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To hear Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham tell it in Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, “…the transformative moment that gave rise to the genus Homo, one of the great transitions in the history of life, stemmed from the control of fire and the advent of cooked meals” almost two million years ago.
Wrangham looks at the advantages of cooked food from an evolutionary perspective. As a new, brainier species evolves, its body has to reallocate to the brain some of the nutrition and energy consumed by other body parts. For that species to thrive without losing other capabilities, it must extract more net resources from its food.
Cooking makes that possible by transforming food into a form that the body digests more efficiently. The same amount of cooked food can supply not only the nutrition to support the same body that the raw food could, but it can also feed a larger brain.
Wrangham argues that cooking launched early hominids onto an evolutionary path that changed not only brains but also bodies and social lives. Their jaws and digestive systems became smaller, paving the way for the evolution of still larger brains.
At some point, hominid bodies morphed into modern human form, and cooking morphed from an advantageous technology into one that our species could not live without. We became “the cooking apes, the creatures of the flame.”
For those readers who argue that we could survive on raw food alone, Wrangham describes the tribulations of people throughout history who have temporarily survived on uncooked or dried foods.
Even today, when top quality produce is readily available, “raw-foodists” are chronically undernourished. The most extensive research is the Giessen (Germany) Raw Food study of 513 individuals who ate between 70 and 100 percent raw diets. Writes Wrangham, “The scientists’ conclusion was unambiguous: ‘a strict raw food diet cannot guarantee an adequate energy supply.'” The energy shortage “is biologically significant…. Among women eating totally raw diets, about 50 percent entirely ceased to menstruate.”
Many of Wrangham’s conclusions are bound to be controversial. He devotes two chapters to the social order, including arguments that cooking has led to a sexual division of labor and a degree of male dominance bordering on the abusive.
The epilogue recommends changes in the standard method of computing the caloric content of cooked food. Modern living, including the technology of cooking, has evolved faster than our bodies. His conclusion: “We must find ways to make our ancient dependence on cooked food healthier.”
Fred Bortz is the author of numerous science books for young readers.
How in the world did every living creature survive for billions of years on raw unaltered uncooked foods and all the sudden it isn’t possible anymore? Humans are fat and sick and are destroying themselves. If you burn the seeds that produce the next generation of foods you are insane. Cooked food eating is not sustainable. Just look around you. Have any of the people that write these ridiculous books about cooked foods making us smarter ever even tried a raw food diet for any length of time? Of course not! Therefore you have no experiential subjective observations with which to support your conclusions. I have eaten raw foods exclusively for 8 years and let me tell you cooked food not the way to go. Eat raw foods, lose weight and gain energy rarely experienced in today’s cooked food world.
Without reading the book, Anonymous asks
and then states
The theme of the book is the answer to the first question, and I hope my review conveys author Richard Wrangham’s point clearly.
We are not talking about “every living creature,” but rather one particular early hominid or pre-hominid species that developed cooking. The advantages of cooked food for extracting nutrition enabled that creature to evolve a larger brain. By the time that creature had evolved into genus Homo, cooking was part of its cultural environment. As in any case of evolution, what begins as a beneficial circumstance in that creature’s environment can become a necessity. Wrangham argues that human survival as a species now requires cooking.
As for the second point, Wrangham does not say that it is impossible for an individual to live on a raw food diet. In fact, today’s agricultural and food preparation technology makes it even more likely that a person can find the nutrition needed.
But for the species overall, and for many individuals, becoming “raw foodists” does not appear to be a successful strategy. In my review, I discuss this point as presented by Wrangham:
So the anonymous commenter may be surviving or even thriving on a raw food diet, but according to this book, s/he is an exception, and has apparently become a zealot for the cause.
I am always wary of zealots, and this is certainly no exception.
Fred Bortz
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