Advances in cooking 200,000 years ago made humans smart, researchers say

by Rob Peters | August 11, 2008 at 09:53 am

1276 views | 14 Recommendations | 22 comments

Humans' evolution into the smarty pantses of the animal world may have resulted from advances in cooking 200,000 years ago, researchers say, a development that made a whole lot of brain food available to us.

The higher caloric input from cooked foods, which apparently went straight to our heads, may be a big reason for our evolutionary cognitive development, according to a new study.

One interesting note about their findings is that the brainy growth spurt may have happened too quickly, and might explain today's common mental health problems. I don't know though, I'm a little skeptical about definitive claims going that far back, but it's certainly interesting to think about.

For a long time, we were pretty dumb. Humans did little but make "the same very boring stone tools for almost 2 million years," he said. Then, only about 150,000 years ago, a different type of spurt happened — our big brains suddenly got smart. We started innovating. We tried different materials, such as bone, and invented many new tools, including needles for beadwork. Responding to, presumably, our first abstract thoughts, we started creating art and maybe even religion.

To understand what caused the cognitive spurt, Khaitovich and colleagues examined chemical brain processes known to have changed in the past 200,000 years. Comparing apes and humans, they found the most robust differences were for processes involved in energy metabolism.

The finding suggests that increased access to calories spurred our cognitive advances, said Khaitovich, carefully adding that definitive claims of causation are premature.

The research is detailed in the August 2008 issue of Genome Biology.

A slightly more in-depth explanation why calories may equal smarts:

The extra calories may not have come from more food, but rather from the emergence of pre-historic "Iron Chefs;" the first hearths also arose about 200,000 years ago.

In most animals, the gut needs a lot of energy to grind out nourishment from food sources. But cooking, by breaking down fibers and making nutrients more readily available, is a way of processing food outside the body. Eating (mostly) cooked meals would have lessened the energy needs of our digestion systems, Khaitovich explained, thereby freeing up calories for our brains.

Instead of growing even larger (which would have made birth even more problematic), the human brain most likely used the additional calories to grease the wheels of its internal functioning.

One interesting sidenote:

Scientists wonder if our cognitive spurt happened too fast. Some of our most common mental health problems, ranging from depression and bipolar disorder to autism and schizophrenia, may be by-products of the metabolic changes that happened in an evolutionary "blink of an eye," Khaitovich said.

While other theories for the brain's cognitive spurt have not been ruled out (one involves the introduction of fish to the human diet), the finding sheds light on what made us, as Khaitovich put it, "so strange compared to other animals."

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Yuliya Talmazan

at 10:26 on August 11th, 2008

I wonder if that is also why domesticated animals became increasingly trainable once they started eating "human" food.

JeffHuang

at 15:18 on August 11th, 2008

This does make sense, but I am still a little skeptical.

Interesting point though Yuliya.

sprootles

at 17:49 on August 11th, 2008

During undergraduate school, I was told brain evolution was a result of humans transitioning from herbivorous to carnivorous eating. Eating meat increases brain capacity and intelligence. At least that's what the professor taught...

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MEMORYsketch

at 18:17 on August 11th, 2008

Interesting theory.

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jayr_patron

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 19:28 on August 11th, 2008

Makes good sense. And with a lot of theories available to us, any one or a combination of multiple theories may prove viable.

One thing I truly believe in is that having been tree dwellers, humans' primate ancestors developed depth perception... with eyes pushed forward, they formed more complex brain systems to determine height, color, etc. From here comes other theories...

AWalker

at 19:37 on August 11th, 2008

I admit that I was a bit inspired by having recently watched both "Healthy Appetite with Ellie Krieger" and "Ratatouille", but I'd like to think that my ancient ancestors ate pizza....

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sallyvillarreal

at 21:30 on August 11th, 2008

I ate this on my trip to California. I think this is called a "bourek." I got it at Moishe's Village at a farmer's market. I'd never seen this before. It's eggs and bacon on a doughy crust. They had several flavors and toppings. They cooked it in a brick oven while I waited.

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nefarioustim

at 00:19 on August 12th, 2008

I've approved two photos from my flickr stream:

Fish pie, one of my favourite foods, and the base of which is largely made up of poached haddock and hard-boiled eggs (in this particular case); both of which are good brain foods, as far as I know. Fish is rich in Omega-3 fatty acids — which builds grey matter and cell membranes — and egg yolk is a source of choline which has recently been proven to boost brainpower by speeding up the sending of signals to nerve cells in the brain.

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AnjaRus22

at 01:34 on August 12th, 2008

Interesting idea, I put this topic up to discussion at my work!

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aamert

at 06:32 on August 12th, 2008

This image is the property of Aamer Javed. You can see more of his work at http://www.flickr.com/photos/aamerjaved/

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Paschen

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 06:44 on August 12th, 2008

Now, I do have a question though! What about cultures that eat rah food and still show to be very smart! Like Many areas in Japan eat mostly raw fish and veggies and Fruits, same for some European cultures that eat Raw meat and Fish and so on! How come they are smart!?

Aidylsock

at 07:26 on August 12th, 2008

The photo is of a recipe I was trying out, a single serving cake cooked in a mug in the microwave.

I can't say I completely agree with the article, but it is an interesting theory.

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EricBidwell

at 10:17 on August 12th, 2008

EricBidwell

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 10:16 on August 12th, 2008

This makes me wonder what the exact evolutionary mechanism was...
Why did people with better cognitive abilities pass their genetics more?

Did they find mates better?

Were they less prone to having fatal accidents?

Were the less "smart" banished?...

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maewja

at 12:23 on August 12th, 2008

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taekwondogirl

at 12:33 on August 12th, 2008

It makes you wonder what went into humans cooking in the first place, and experimenting with different foods. Who was the first person who figured out how to eat an artichoke? Or pulled on the udders of a cow to get milk and thought to actually drink it? How about the first human who was hungry enough to try and eat a crab or a lobster? It makes you wonder what sort of delightful foods we're missing out on now because of the animal's appearance. As a side note, stay away from my cat.

Cooking is a good brain exercise in and of itself, just by arranging the preparation correctly and being able to multi-task.

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prex

at 12:35 on August 12th, 2008

Nothing quite like a homemade backyard fire pit for a summer BBQ. This is diced up tri-tip with bits of pearl onions in between, cooked on a fire pit made out of the bottom third of water pressure tank.

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snap.hiss

at 13:04 on August 12th, 2008

Hickory smoked sweet potato pie. Mmmmm.

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denis408

at 15:58 on August 12th, 2008

This pan of delectable sausage links was browning on the stove and I just had to capture the moment, not on film, but digitally. I can't comment on eating uncooked sausage, but these links, cooked, were just delicious. I browned the whole bunch and froze half of them to eat later. Check out my other photos on flickr; search for denis408

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Stephen Kruso

at 20:55 on August 12th, 2008

Carne Asada or Pollo Asada Marinade Recipe @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/is0crazy/2726808966/

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nesyuhgnilerf

at 06:56 on August 13th, 2008

Cooked fresh pasta: perhaps one of the world's oldest cooked foods.

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MysticStormy

at 12:19 on August 19th, 2008

Quite an interesting story which will give readers food for thought. - no pun intended - Also might make people stop and think about what they are putting into their bodies. Thank You for such a great article.

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