> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paleolithic Eating Support List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of ginny wilken
> Sent: Saturday, December 02, 2006 9:42 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Cooking - was Cooking Fats
>
>
> On Dec 2, 2006, at 3:33 PM, Philip wrote:
>
> >
> > COOKING STILL HAS BEEN AROUND LONG ENOUGH FOR DIGESTIVE
> > ADAPTATION ...
>
> 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.
How is it that we've adapted to drinking raw milk after about 6000-9000
years, but not to cooking Paleo foods after 125,000 or more years?
>
> 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?
>
Earliest accepted evidence of grain eating is 23,000 ya (though there are
speculations on much earlier--as early as 790,000 ya based on scanty
evidence at the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov site). However, earliest use of grain
as a staple food for a significantly large population is 10-12,000 ya.
Nowhere near 125,000 years of cooking being widespread and way short of the
most liberal estimate of earliest cooking (1.6-1.8 million years ago). That
doesn't eliminate the possibility, in my view, that some people may have
adapted mostly or completely, just not a lot, and even if some have adapted
it still may not be an "optimal" food even for them.
> 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?
That sounds like a good idea.
> 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.
>
I've never heard of another species cooking food :-), though wild animals
and birds are known to gobble up cooked carcasses after a forest fire and
many (such as raccoons and bears) will eat cooked meats found in human
refuse. That doesn't indicate adaption, of course, since being edible does
not make a food biologically appropriate. Everu human culture for the last
125,000 years has cooked at least some of its meats. I don't know how long
human beings have been feeding cooked meats to domesticated animals (I'll
use dogs as the example, since they were the first animal domesticated), how
much of fed meats was still raw after feeding cooked meats began, or how
much dogs might be adapted to cooked meats. Earliest estimates for
domestication of dogs is 60 to 135,000 ya (Robert K. Wayne). Neoteny
(retention of juvenile traits) is often cited as evidence of at least some
adaptation to cooked foods. Neoteny is far more pronounced in humans than in
dogs (humans are nearly hairless and have smaller teeth than dogs or other
primates despite bigger heads relative to body, etc.), indicating possibly
more adaptation to cooked foods among humans.
I certainly don't advocate feeding carnivorous pets only cooked meats. I eat
some rare meats and occasionally raw seafood myself, along with more
thoroughly cooked stuff. I think the greatest benefit of raw meats is
probably the organs that contain vitamin C, like the adrenal and thymus
glands. Unfortunately, these are not part of our culture.
Also, arguing that we have adapted to cooked meats doesn't mean that it was
necessarily a good thing that we adapted. It probably would have been better
in some ways if humans had remained raw meat eaters, since this might have
prevented or reduced the neonatinization of human beings. Less body hair,
smaller teeth and finer bones make us less well adapted to nature. On the
other hand, our brains might not have gotten as big as they did (though look
at the trouble our brains have gotten us into :-) ).
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