On Dec 2, 2006, at 3:33 PM, Philip wrote:

>
> COOKING STILL HAS BEEN AROUND LONG ENOUGH FOR DIGESTIVE ADAPTATION
> So if you accept only the most cautious estimates of when cooking  
> became
> widespread (around 125,000 ya), it doesn't predate the origin of
> anatomically modern humans, but it still allows plenty of time for  
> humans to
> have adapted to digesting cooked foods.


This supposes we have actually adapted. I find it completely possible  
that cooking was - and remains - a compromise, nutritionally, and  
that high levels of ingestion of cooked food create a suboptimal, but  
not so much as to wipe us out, state of health.

What are that figures on the advent of cooking vis-a-vis the advent  
of grain culture? The anthropological records which show  
deterioration concurrent with the dawn of agriculture?

It should be easy to put some sort of qualitative analysis on  
digestion of various raw and cooked - efficiency of absorption,  
metabolization of waste, etc. How about a comparison of gut flora? I  
have seen so many animals and humans start to thrive beyond any  
expectation to the extent that cooked foods are avoided that I would  
have a bit of trouble saying that any of those species have adapted  
to a cooked diet.


ginny


All stunts performed without a net!