# Why do humans cook food? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 11, 2004, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326 "2004-12-11T17:48:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Orville\_mogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/aeb1de/32.png) [@Orville\_mogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orville_mogul)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/1 "2004-12-11T17:48:36Z")
I was just watching a nature film when they panned on a bloody carcass of a deer. I immediately thought “yuck, raw bloody meat”. But then I thought further: whoever killed the deer obviously liked the meal, and we eat deer too. But the difference is that we cook it. And presumably at some point in the history of humans, we too ate raw meat. Being that homo sapiens is probably the only species that cooks its food, I wonder why. What would be the advantage (evolutionary or otherwise) of cooking our food instead of eating it raw like every other species? ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/2 "2004-12-11T17:52:39Z")
Digestion uses energy. If any of the processes can be begun before we eat the food, then we’re making more efficient use of the energy provided by our previous meal. Cooking food does this. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/3 "2004-12-11T17:55:43Z")
cooking breaks down the proteins, making it easier to digest. It also kills of bacteria, protozoa, worms, and whatever else that can make you sick. Cooked food also tastes better IMO (except cookie dough) ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/4 "2004-12-11T17:59:57Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > Digestion uses energy. If any of the processes can be begun before we eat the food, then we’re making more efficient use of the energy provided by our previous meal. Cooking food does this. Nah, I don’t buy it. Arguably, that’s a benefit, but it’s not an answer to the question of _why_ we do it. It has nothing to do with evolution or digestive efficiency or killing germs, but everythign to do with taste. Cooked food tasted better - or at least different - to our primitive ancestors, who likely discovered cooking about the same time he learned to control fire. I can easily imagine a stone-age hunter-gatherer eating his raw deer meat around a fire one night and noticing a bit that had fallen on the ground near the fire. He picks it up, sniffs it, and decides to try a bit. At this point he thinks the pre-linguistic equivalent of “Hey, this ain’t bad!” He shows his buddies who go on to try heating different foods over, in and near the fire, and there you have it. 20,000 years later we’ve got the Iron Chef. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/5 "2004-12-11T18:03:05Z")
> [@Q.E.D.](#): > > …it’s not an answer to the question of _why_ we do it. That should probably read “it’s not an answer to why we _started doing_ it.” ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/6 "2004-12-11T18:07:02Z")
Serious, it is all to do with energy efficiency. The same as why we walk on two legs - it’s slow, clumsy, prone to accidents and makes us visible to predators…but it’s more efficent. The burden of gathering firewood would not be something they’d be doing just to improve the taste of the food - if there was no benefit to it, they’d be better off gathering _more food_! Of course, cooking food was around long before modern man evolved. Now, we’ve _lost_ the ability to digest some foods raw. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/7 "2004-12-11T18:13:29Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > The burden of gathering firewood would not be something they’d be doing just to improve the taste of the food… No. They had to have the fire anyway, to keep warm and keep predators away, and also for the making of some tools. It wasn’t like they were initially doing any additional work to cook the food. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/8 "2004-12-11T18:31:54Z")
related question: Are there any primitive tribes that eat uncooked , raw meat? And I’m not referring to _steak tartare_ in fancy restaurants. I’m wondering if there is any human society where a hunter would, as the OP said, find the bloody carcass of a deer and want to eat it. (maybe that should be in the past tense–nowadays most tribes all over the earth have been exposed to modernity.The Yanonamo,(in theAmazon) use video cameras to document their land claims against the Brazilian government. But until first contacted in 1960 , they were still stone-age, and unaware of any life outside their own part of the jungle. ) ---
**Author:** ![Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f0a364/32.png) [@Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rube_E.Tewesday)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/9 "2004-12-11T18:58:18Z")
Ever hear of the Inuit? Still eat raw meat, and usually prefer it to cooked. There’s certainly nothing about being human that requires people to eat cooked meat. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/10 "2004-12-11T19:30:12Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > Serious, it is all to do with energy efficiency. The same as why we walk on two legs - it’s slow, clumsy, prone to accidents and makes us visible to predators…but it’s more efficent. The burden of gathering firewood would not be something they’d be doing just to improve the taste of the food - if there was no benefit to it, they’d be better off gathering _more food_! > > Of course, cooking food was around long before modern man evolved. Now, we’ve _lost_ the ability to digest some foods raw. Cite? Which ones? ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/11 "2004-12-11T19:39:34Z")
> [@](#): > > At this point he thinks the pre-linguistic equivalent of “Hey, this ain’t bad!” He shows his buddies who go on to try heating different foods over, in and near the fire, and there you have it. 20,000 years later we’ve got the Iron Chef. Cue the music from the opening scene of _2001_ ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/12 "2004-12-11T20:01:33Z")
But we’re hardly the only animal which _prepares_ its own meat. Dogs will bury their kills, and alligators will wedge them under sumberged tangles, to let them rot and soften up for later consumption. Presumably, early man did this too. Perhaps the ones who cooked their meat died of food poisoning less than those who let it rot, so the trend developed. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/13 "2004-12-11T22:15:17Z")
Still, it begs the question - if humans started cooking food because we discovered that it tastes considerably better that way, why haven’t, say, chimps discovered the same thing? Are humans the only animals that have used fire for their benefit? and why? xo C. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/14 "2004-12-12T00:37:17Z")
> [@Q.E.D.](#): > > 20,000 years later we’ve got the Iron Chef. Plus ca change … ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/15 "2004-12-12T00:40:24Z")
> [@CC](#): > > Are humans the only animals that have used fire for their benefit? The literal answer is of course no - my dog curls up by the wood stove, for example. But if any non-human animal controls fire, I haven’t heard of it. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/16 "2004-12-12T00:59:43Z")
> [@Rube E. Tewesday](#): > > Ever hear of the Inuit? Still eat raw meat, and usually prefer it to cooked. There’s certainly nothing about being human that requires people to eat cooked meat. Nobody has said there was. When it’s easier to cook the meat, then fine. But in extreme environments such as the Arctic, then fire is perhaps not the best or most efficient way to tackle meat. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/17 "2004-12-12T01:35:55Z")
> [@Q.E.D.](#): > > Cooked food tasted better - or at least different - to our primitive ancestors, who likely discovered cooking about the same time he learned to control fire. But _why_ does cooked food taste better? Isn’t it possible that natural selection taught us to like cooked food, because there was an evolutionary advantage to eating cooked food? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/18 "2004-12-12T01:52:48Z")
There’s also the fact that cooked meat keeps longer than raw meat. Whatever wasn’t eaten immediately after a kill would stay edible longer if it was cooked than if it wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![spingears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/19 "2004-12-12T02:00:02Z")
> [@Q.E.D.](#): > > That should probably read “it’s not an answer to why we _started doing_ it.” Answer: It tastes better than raw with few exceptions. See if you can find the old grade school story “Origin of Roast Pig” or similar title. You don’t have to burn the house down? ---
**Author:** ![tremorviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2004, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326/20 "2004-12-12T02:11:09Z")
Here’s a [link](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=4975887&postcount=5) to an earlier post I made on the subject. The quotes are from a Harvard Magazine article in which the researcher theorizes that when humans started eating cooked food, they had to spend much less time devoted to eating (since raw food requirs a lot more chewing) which freed up their time for other things. Evidently, chimps spend about six hours a day chewing food as opposed to humans who spend one… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-humans-cook-food/279326.md?page=2)