Just to explain what I mean, why did mankind decide to cook their food. Monkeys, nor any other animal don’t do it, so why did humans decide to? Why is SLIGHTLY cooking it beneficial for us, while overcooking it isn’t?
In: Biology
>Monkeys, nor any other animal don’t do it, so why did humans decide to?
Because we can. Nutrients is a very broad word, but in general we’re talking about the building blocks that our bodies need. Most of these are trapped inside cells or other structures in the food we eat. So cooking food for the right amount of time helps to break down cell walls, and to some extent break down the nutrients into more easily absorbed components. But overcooking breaks the nutrients down even further to a point where they are unusable.
You pointed out that monkeys and other animals don’t cook their food, but you have to realize that wild primates spend 5 to 10 hours a day eating. Because their food isn’t cooked, it needs to be chewed much more thoroughly, and even then they absorb a lower percentage of the nutrients then they would from cooked food.
Cooking was probably the most important technological advancement in human history. It allowed humans to spend less time eating and more time doing all the other things that make us human.
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