SWA #9 The Cooking Ape

Wrangham claims that cooking has had a significant impact on humans when he compares the changes in food supplies between chimpanzees and gorillas.  When there is a shortage of food, the gorillas are able to adapt and collect different food. Their ability to adapt allows them to survive, whereas chimps cannot survive without the food that they are dependent on.  By noting this little difference between them, Wrangham is able to show us how humans have evolved from apes through even the slightest change, like cooking food.  Our bodies have adjusted to evolutional changes due to cooking.  We do not need large teeth or jaws for chewing raw meat.  Our teeth have gotten smaller because they have adapted to our simple needs of chewing cooked foods.  He notes how our ancestors "absorbed less energy" because their food was mostly indigestible materials with much more fiber than what we intake now.  Wrangham states that eating cooked food has caused an increase in the weight of women and an increase in the size of the human brain.   He then ties everything together by mentioning its impact on the social aspects of society through the years.  He explains how women received their role in kitchen by providing food for the man in exchange for protection.  In the past the protection would be to ward off other men, but now it is more like a gesture of gratitude for their working partner.  All of these points allow us to see how fire and cooking resulted in the development of humans.