Hello All,

Apologies if this has already been discussed.  I'm having a hard
time keeping up with things these days.

Aside from the some of the more obvious uses of fire, such as
fire-hardening wood, metallurgy, "landscaping" for agriculture,
protection from predators, etc., has it ever been hypothesized
that one of the biggest benefits of fire was in food preparation
and inadvertant STERILIZATION (bacterial, viral and parasite) of
food products, specificallymeats, along with potential
detoxification of both meats and vegetables (assuming that some
raw foods have endogenous toxins that might be heat labile).
Can an argument be made that surival was enhanced by this factor,
AND (the following is HIGHLY speculative, and may be hard to chew
for some) can the argument be made that mostly all foods became
easier to masticate, thereby driving selection away from hominid
robusticity (which appears to be associated with more robust and
vegetarian dentition)?

Thanks,

Matt

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