The idea that cooked food tastes bland compared to raw is merely 
preference/perception.  AFAIK, there is no concrete evidence that eating 
cooked meat is unhealthy.  It seems to me that raw or cooked meat are both 
healthful. 

Many hunter-gatherers preferred cooked food over raw.  For instance certain 
Yanomamo tribes seek out rotted stumps that contain large grubs which they 
will eat raw but also take the time to cook on a large leaf (tastes like "burned 
fat").  They will almost always cook a spider monkey or tapir.  To them the 
flavor is enhanced via cooking.

But eating raw meat is normal too for HGs.  Plains Indians would often eat the 
liver and other organs of a bison immediately upon a kill.  The rest of the 
carcass was processed (meat dried or cooked, fat rendered) by the women 
later.  The Inuit often ate their meat raw, but would also regularly cook the 
meat.

Regarding processing times, you have to remember that a HG tribe typically 
had as many as 80 - 100 members.  With so many people helping it was great 
feat to prepare a pit with hot stones and cover the animal for cooking for 
several hours.

There are no hard and fast rules regarding cooking vs raw based on modern 
HG tribes who presumably are similar in culture to their ancestors.  It is a 
matter of preference (or necessity) but not health.

Brad


On Mon, 1 Jun 2009, Geoffrey Purcell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


Re cooking:- My experience is that almost all cooking requires recipes of s= 
ome sort. This is partly because cooked-food is actually very bland in tast= 
e=2C so requires lots of extra sauces and spices to make it taste better=2C=  
but also even the slightest cooking requires some preparation time. When I=  
prepare raw foods=2C in 95%+ of cases=2C it takes  a couple of minutes to = 
prepare=2C maybe 5. With a  standard cooked-meal=2C it took 30+ minutes 
at = the very least(assuming no highly-processed microwave-ready meals 
were avai= lable).

Then one has to take into account that lighting a fire in those palaeo days= 
=2C as well as building up the fire and doing the actual cooking=2C would h= 
ave taken absolutely ages by comparison to modern times.Palaeo humans=2C 
un= like us=2C weren't able to simply light up with gas/electricity and 
sustain=  a sizeable fire in a split-second in the way we can. So=2C 
timewise=2C coo= king is a terrible waste of one's time=2C and certainly not 
opportunistic. = One can save hours of free time every week  by just going 
raw.