Re calories comment:- Unfortunately, Wrangham doesn't take into account the fact that human brain-size also increased considerably well before the arbitrary c.1.8/1.9 million-year-ago date  he gives for the advent  of cooking. So, his claim that cooking was essential for survival in order to provide enough needed calories for a larger brain is clearly bogus as our raw-eating hominid-ancestors got bigger brains without the need for cooked-food during that particular period(and managed to survive very well or we wouldn't be here).


Interestingly, Wrangham himself seems to agree on the point that the higher the processing/denaturing of the food, the greater the weight-gain will be(though he erroneously attributes this to higher levels of calories in cooked/processed foods). In this article, he claims that dieting supplements will lead to weight-gain due to excessive processing and that the less processing there is involved, the less weight-gain there is:-

"There is a group of nutritional scientists who have been objecting for
some years and saying we need to amend the convention to draw people’s
attention to the fact that less processed food gives you fewer
calories. "


http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/did_cooking_make_us_human/


Another interesting point made by Wrangham which rather implies that his view is decidedly in the minority:-

"Those tables, on the USDA website or in books by institutes of food
chemistry, report that the calorie value per gram is the same in food
whether it’s cooked or whether it’s raw."

The above USDA mention is quite logical, really. Of course, wrangham means to further claim that the calories in cooked-foods are more utilisable than the calories in raw foods, but the trouble is that that really only applies to grains(and maybe veg?) but not otherwise.



Re pringles comments etc.:- The point I was making is that the higher a food is processed, the more likely it is that people who eat such foods become obese. So, one can make a reasonable assumption that the opposite is true that the less processed a food is the less likely it is one becomes obese. To negate that logical conclusion, one would have to come up with some pretty solid evidence of a cut-off point(say 20 degrees above boiling or whatever) whereby (lightly-cooked-food) wasn't supposedly a weight-gaining factor. 

*Possibly irrelevant  anecdote:- Arnold Schwarzenegger reported, in his autobiography, that in his Austrian Army days, he was forced to eat foods at the Army canteen which were excessively overcooked, no doubt due to concerns re bacteria(he would eat lots of meat, among other foods). Anyway, he explained how the protein in the overcooked food was so nutritionally useless/inabsorbable as regards helping to build up muscle that he had to overeat twice as much of it in order to build up the same level of muscle as before the Army - he also had to do extra workouts in order to work off the extra fat gained as a result.

Not that Schwarzenegger was ever a raw-foodist per se as he appeared during the steroid-abusing era some time after the main raw-food-eating bodybulding era (though I think he went in for raw eggs to some extent like many bodybuilders), but it is of interest, nevertheless as it gives an example of how cooked-food is so poorly absorbed and utilised by the body - so much for Wrangham's claim that cooked-food is more digestible.


re comment:-"
t the same time, we used to have a subscriber named Philip Thrift (I
still don't know whatever happened to him) who did pretty much the same
thing on a mostly cooked paleo diet. I believe he reported losing 20 or
so lbs of fat and replacing it with muscle. He cooked everything with a
microwave."

Granted, it isn't merely a question of eating raw or cooked. It's perfectly possible to lose weight by cutting out grains or dairy. Come to think of it, those RVAFers who aren't rawpalaeo but who consume lots of raw dairy conversely report weight-gain quite often, unlike rawpalaeos and raw vegans. I'm just saying that from an anecdotal level it's mostly a lot easier to lose weight on a raw food diet. Also, it seems pretty clear to me, given reports re weight-gain from eating carbs and dairy(including my own example re weight gain on pasteurised dairy) etc.,  that such weight-gain is very likely due to some sort of food-intolerance/allergy - so weight-gain from cooked-food could well be due to some similiar negative reaction from the body.

Re calories:- From what I understand, the claim that cooking increases (utilisable?)calories is bogus at least as regards raw foods(not  for grains, but rawists don't usually eat raw grains, for obvious reasons). I remember another raw-foodist once pointing out that raw food(well raw meat, anyway) has slightly more calories than cooked meat. However, because raw meat has a higher water-content than cooked-meat, that this skews the results making it wrongly seem as though the cooked-meat has more calories, gram for gram. If one, however, takes the water-content issue into account, then raw food turns out to have slightly more calories than cooked(presumably the slight difference in calories is due to the destruction of nutrients like vitamins etc. caused by cooking). Of course, if meat is cooked till it was mostly charred and compared to raw foods, then the difference in calories between raw and cooked meat would be even greater.

geoff

> Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:26:46 -0600
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: How fire made us human
> To: [log in to unmask]
> 
> Geoff sez:
> 
> >For example it's been suggested by many scientists  that highly processed=
> >foods are a key factor behind obesity=2C so there's no reason to suppose 
> >that less-heavily processed foods such as boiled grassfed meats  don't also =
> >cause obesity in a similiar fashion.
> 
> There's no reason to assume that they do either. 
> 
> >It's interesting also=2C that there is =
> >mention in various places of the addictive nature of processed foods:-
> 
> Non-sequitur.Has nothing to do with the article.
> 
> >as that relates to my other points made re addictive substances found in co=
> >oked-foods which over-stimulate appetite. I noticed this=2C myself=2C in th=
> >e past.I'm sure members have noticed=2C like myself=2C that it's much easie=
> <snip>
> 
> Again, it has nothing to do with the article. There were no Pringles or M&Ms back then. The article was about cooked vs. non-cooked in the paleolithic.
> 
> >Now=2C I'll grant that constant high activity levels can reduce weight etc.=
> >=2C but this is only easily achievable in tribal cultures like in Palaeo ti=
> >mes=2C where daily activity levels were high enough to counter any weight-g=
> >aining effect of cooked-foods.
> 
> Which seems to supoprt Wrangham's hypothesis that Paleos could have adopted cooking in order to ingest more calories. More calories per meal = more meals available for everyone.
> 
> Robert chimes in:
> 
> > ate too much (at least in terms of calories). Raw foods=2C by their very=
> =20
> > nature=2C are primarily meat and veggies=2C and it's pretty hard to overe=
> at on=20
> > raw meat and veggies.
> 
> Maybe. I'll grant veggies because of their nature. But I find it easy to overindulge on meats - whether cooked or raw.
> 
> >Play.  (That last one is an easy, fun, and cheap way to get some good
> >physical activity, but so few adults do it.)
> 
> Play with abandon like your dog plays. That will do it :) Me, I lift weights and put 
> 
> Geoff adds:
> 
> >I once had some chats with my now-deceased father=2C at various times=2C wh=
> >o told me how he would go in for various blue-collar jobs=2C in his youth=
> >=2C involving lifting great weights throughout the day(an example being job=
> >s at railway-stations lifting heavy weights constantly). 
> 
> In college I knew several (American) football players who tried to get jobs at the local grocery store "throwing freight" for the same reason. Of course, I would also see them occasionally pushing cars around parking lots :)
> 
> > I was c.110 kg on a SAD-diet including dairy al=
> >ong with a massive potbelly etc.=2C and ended up between 85 to 90kg on a ra=
> >wpalaeodiet.
> 
> At the same time, we used to have a subscriber named Philip Thrift (I still don't know whatever happened to him) who did pretty much the same thing on a mostly cooked paleo diet. I believe he reported losing 20 or so lbs of fat and replacing it with muscle. He cooked everything with a microwave.
> 
> Just sayin...

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