Flashback Friday: Does Cooking Make Us Human

**I am going back through my old posts and finding some that I still love. I wanted to re-share them, especially for those of you that haven’t been reading my blog for very long. This post is from last September (2009), a few weeks after I stopped eating raw. I was only raw for a few weeks, but I found that it didn’t work for me. I have edited this post slightly so it is not exactly the way it appeared last year. Without further ado…**

Does Cooking Make Us Human?

In the summer of 2009, raw food was abuzz in blogland. I gave it a try to help my digestion, but that way of eating didn’t work for me. Now that it’s fall there is less and less talk about raw food, and more and more posts about oatmeal, baked squash, and delicious apples. It’s propitious that Bobby alerted me to this article: Did Cooking Give Humans An Evolutionary Edge? – a transcript of an NPR talk from Science Friday. It has to do with the differences between humans and other primates (like this gorilla that lives in the San Francisco zoo)…

537px-Male_gorilla_in_SF_zoo

To summarize:

  • It’s an interview with Dr. Richard Wrangham, a primatologist (someone who studies primates = humans, apes, monkeys, and prosimians) who wrote Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.
  • Dr. Wrangham proposes that cooking has actually been a key aspect of evolution and our bodies have changed over the years due to the fact that we can cook our food. It’s given us a huge evolutionary advantage because we have more time to use our brains instead of foraging and chewing all day long.
  • Interesting factoid: apes show either a preference for cooked food over raw food, or they are neutral… they never prefer raw to cooked food.
  • Humans have a weird digestive system compared to other primates. Our digestive system is 2/3rds the size of an ape’s (if you adjust for the size of the ape versus the size of the human) and we have small teeth and small mouths – not ideal for lots of chewing.
  • We’ve adapted to a “high quality” diet. (High quality meaning mostly cooked and easy to digest… not talking about the processed crap that most people live on.) Cooking is what increased the “quality” of our diet.
  • We don’t have to eat large amounts of food and we don’t have to retain and ferment food for many many hours to digest it.
  • The changes to our digestive system happened about 1.8 million years ago.
  • Cooking our food increases the proportion of nutrients and energy that we’re able to digest. While a cooked carrot may technically have the same number of calories as a raw one, we are able to access more of the calories from the cooked one. Another example – when you cook an egg and eat it, you can digest about 94% of the protein. A raw egg? You digest about 60%. That’s a big difference.
  • Why does cooking make things easier to digest? For protein, the process is called denaturation. The protein cells are kind of like a big ball of yarn; cooking unwinds the yarn. Besides cooking, acid can also denature something. Our stomach acid can do some of this, but cooking makes it that much easier for our bodies to digest protein (going from 60% digestion with just stomach acid to 94% digestion with cooking in the egg example above). A similar process happens with starch – chains of sugars open up during cooking so that they are more readily available to absorb.
  • Humans are one of the only species that typically does not thrive on a raw diet… about half of women following a raw diet stop menstruating and most people lose weight (but this isn’t always a but thing). This is due to an energy shortage.
  • Now this doesn’t mean that a raw diet can’t be beneficial – a lot of people are eating way too much so a raw diet can help them maintain their weight and feel better. A lot of the benefits that come from a raw diet are due to cutting out processed foods and chemicals. Many people have undiagnosed food allergies (gluten, wheat, dairy, etc…) and since those foods aren’t common in a high raw diet, people will feel better since they’re not eating them anymore.
  • Again, eating more raw food is not necessarily bad or unhealthy! But if you live in a place where food is scarce, you should *not* follow a raw diet… if you live in the US or another developed country, incorporating more raw foods into your diet is actually a fabulous idea.
  • Many people think that following a raw food diet is the most “natural” way to live… not true. We’ve actually evolved away from eating raw food. And one of the major reasons that we’ve been able to advance so far in terms of knowledge and technology is due to the fact that we are NOT like other primates – we don’t have to eat all day to get enough food, so we have time to use our huge brains.

Ever Heard of Biocultural Evolution?

In anthropology there is the idea of biocultural evolution, which basically says that our culture (using tools, cooking food, etc…) has a large influence on our evolution. The invention of tools allowed us to evolve away from huge teeth. The cultural idea of wearing clothes might be the reason that we aren’t covered in hair. And maybe cooking is responsible for changing our digestive system, our mouths, and our teeth.

What does it mean for me and you?

What works best for me is a fairly natural diet (no processed foods) with a little bit of raw food. I’d call it somewhat macrobiotic, except for the fact that I also eat dairy and meat… in moderation. I eat fruit raw (obviously) and I do snack on raw veggies sometimes. I love salad (obviously, again) but I don’t eat salad every day unless it’s the summer. I love my oatmeal, oat bran, baked and steamed squash, and many other cooked foods, especially in the cooler months.

What works for you? What do you think of the ideas that this guy is proposing?

New York Yummy Vegan Food

Remember that friend I hung out with last week? We met up on Friday night at a cafe kind of near my apartment: Good Health Cafe (menu here). The place is mostly macrobiotic. It does offer chicken and fish, but it’s all sustainable/free-range/organic etc.. Definitely my kind of place! And they even deliver.

Gaby and I both got the same thing: stuffed cabbage rolls with steamed veggies and a sweet potato mash.

So that was Friday night dinner. Friday lunch was just as good! My good friend (and bridesmaid) took me out for my birthday to another favorite: Peacefood Cafe (vegan, mostly raw). Peacefood is on the upper west side. I went for the Asian Greens salad (I had never gotten a salad here before).

It had a bunch of different veggies, sprouts, carrots, tomatoes, jicama (love), peanuts, and it was topped with the most amazing tempeh. I usually dislike tempeh but this was fabulous. I ate it ALL. The dressing (peanutty sesame garlicky goodness) was to die for. I want it again.

My other Peacefood post (I have been here again but I guess I didn’t post about it):

What you don’t see is my meal from Saturday brunch, which was also from Good Health. I am the type of person to go to a restaurant over and over again if it is good. Which Good Health is. I love it when I find a place that I know I can order just about anything and be happy. Souen and Good Health are now at the top of my list.

What is your favorite restaurant dish?

I always have to try papaya salad if it’s on the menu.

I picked a winner of the book giveaway… click here to see who won!

Recipe: Grilled Portobello Kale Salad

I saw a recipe for a vegan surf & turf the other day and knew I had to make my own version – here’s my take!

Grilled Portobello Kale Salad

Ingredients (serves 1 hungry Maggie)

  • 2 portobello caps
  • bragg’s liquid aminos
  • a little more than 1 bunch of kale
  • 1/2 avocado
  • 1-2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • dash of sea salt
  • 5-10 spritzes of bragg’s liquid aminos
  • 1 teaspoon honey/sweetener
  • liberal spoonfuls of nooch! (nutritional yeast)

Method

  1. Slice the portobellos into strips. Spray with bragg’s. Grill (I used a George Foreman) until tender (10 minutes).
  2. Massage the kale with the avocado, lemon juice, salt, and more bragg’s. I also like to add honey at this point. Massage for maybe 1-2 minutes.
  3. Top the kale with the portobellos and lots of nooch.
  4. EAT. Repeat.

I have made this for both dinner and lunch. It’s quite filling though I usually like to have something else with it. It holds up well in a tupperware and it can definitely last in the fridge overnight. It’s amazing fresh, of course.

Even better – it’s packed with powerhouse nutrients (kale, nooch, avocado). The portobellos taste almost meaty when grilled. Portobellos are definitely a favorite for me. I should try making the non-veg version too, but I’m not that experienced at non-veg cooking.

Hope you get to try this! I’ll leave you with this cat cutie:

What’s your favorite veggie?

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I had the most lovely conversation last night with one of my favorite bloggie friends. We chatted and chatted and I walked outside (just up to 70th and back; I live on 60th). Heather and I always have lots to talk about 😉 Like how great kabocha is:

13-kabocha

While I was walking I realized a few things:

  • For one, I really like walking. I think I might be burning myself out a little with all this intenSati.
  • Yes, Equinox and intenSati are awesome…
  • But no, I’m not the kind of person who needs (or wants) that kind of exercise every day, every week, or even every month. I like to walk. I like to yoga.
  • I do love the Equinox showers, but I think I can trade them up for some at-home TLC in the form of some new bath products.

So… I probably will not be joining Equinox at the end of this month’s Warrior Challenge. I will definitely miss EarthRise Yoga (which I went to this morning), but I’ll replace it with podcasts and yoga on my own. (This is my yoga page – full of free recommendations. I’ll be updating this soon! Stay tuned.)

Just because I’m in the city now, that doesn’t mean I can’t make time to cook the food I *really* like. For example, I came up with a lovely lunch today:

  • 2/3 cup (uncooked measure; it gets bigger in the rice cooker) brown rice, lightly salted
  • topped with a few spoons of nutritional yeast (nooch)
  • topped with some organic butter
  • steamed Brussels sprouts and sweet corn

Here is a picture of rice for your viewing pleasure (this is my picture, but it’s not from today and it doesn’t have nooch or butter on it):

jan 03 2010 003

Tonight my brother is coming into the city (he goes to school nearby) and we are going to get dinner at some vegan/vegetarian/raw place (any combination of the 3).

What are YOUR recommendations?

Breaking the Fast

More Blueprint Cleanse Info:

I opted for Level 3: Excavation. This is the most intense level because the juices are all green; the other levels have more fruit juices. Dori did Level 1: Renovation (she likes green juice, but not the romaine that BPC adds).

6 juices per day.

  1. no.1: Green juice – romaine, celery, cucumber,green apple, spinach, kale, parsley, lemon.
  2. no.2: Green juice – romaine, celery, cucumber, green apple, spinach, kale, parsley, lemon, ginger.
  3. no.3: Green juice – romaine, celery, cucumber, green apple, spinach, kale, parsley, lemon.
  4. no.4: Spicy Lemonade – filtered water,lemon, agave nectar, cayenne.
  5. no.5: Green juice – romaine, celery, cucumber, green apple, spinach, kale, parsley, lemon.
  6. no.6: Nut milk – filtered water, raw cashews, agave nectar, vanilla bean, cinnamon.

I would definitely be able to make most of these – they are really similar to the green juices I was having over the summer.

I had a lot of trouble today. I woke up and did the 30-day shred, so I probably set myself up for being hungry all day long. By 2:30pm I had finished 4 juices – leaving just 2 for the rest of the night. I also cheated and had 2 cups of coffee with a little bit of the nut milk.

At 5:00pm, instead of going for one of the remaining juices (green or cashew milk) I went downstairs to a cafe and got a banana. I tried to chew it well so as not to overwhelm my stomach. I sipped water until I went home from work around 7:30pm. I did not want any more juice. I saved the green one and the cashew milk for later. I might have the green juice tomorrow morning.

banana1

Bobby made healthy fried rice for dinner, so I had a big bowl of that. I pretty much only ate the rice because I wanted to stick with one type of food – it’s easier for digestion if you have just carbs, or just protein, etc…

dec 30 2009 063

Bobby makes the best fried rice. And after dinner I had 2 cookies made by Auntie Jo.

My stomach actually feels okay – I was so so hungry all day today no matter how much I drank or ate and I was worried that when I started eating lots of solids I would feel terrible. But it’s okay so far… I’ll let you know how it pans out. I still feel hungry and I know I’ve had enough – it was a lot of rice.

I don’t know if I would do a cleanse like this again. For one thing, it’s really expensive! It’s $195 for 3 days (but I had 25% off so it was about $146). That’s a little more than $8/juice… which is pretty standard, but I can’t justify it. Especially since it wasn’t enough and I had to eat additional stuff each day. I think if I want to do this in the future I’ll just “juice ‘til dinner” and make my own juices. I’m going to NJ tomorrow so I’ll bring back my Breville juicer this weekend.

Overall – I’m really glad I did it. My stomach is/was flat for a few days and I lost the bloating. It made me realize the importance of appreciating food and not going overboard. It made me recognize that I need to be gentle to my stomach/digestive system because it’s sensitive. But I am SO glad it’s over.

If I don’t post tomorrow… Happy New Year! What are your plans? We’re going to New Jersey tomorrow after work and we’re going to a friend’s house for a small party. I think we’re coming back into the city on Saturday (Bobby is seeing a Nets vs. Cavaliers game).