Sun, Aug-23-15, 13:17
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Senior Member
Posts: 15,075
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Plan: mostly milkfat
Stats: 190/152.4/154
BF:
Progress: 104%
Location: Ontario
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Quote:
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I find it difficult to believe that humans started cooking just because it tastes better.
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On the preference front--in animal studies, there's a tendency where a flavour/food cue that's paired with a greater calorie payoff, whether fat or carbohydrate, for a greater preference to develop.
Quote:
1, Weintraub GS, Wrangham RW.
Author information
Abstract
Processing food extensively by thermal and nonthermal techniques is a unique and universal human practice. Food processing increases palatability and edibility and has been argued to increase energy gain. Although energy gain is a well-known effect from cooking starch-rich foods, the idea that cooking meat increases energy gain has never been tested. Moreover, the relative energetic advantages of cooking and nonthermal processing have not been assessed, whether for meat or starch-rich foods. Here, we describe a system for characterizing the energetic effects of cooking and nonthermal food processing. Using mice as a model, we show that cooking substantially increases the energy gained from meat, leading to elevations in body mass that are not attributable to differences in food intake or activity levels. The positive energetic effects of cooking were found to be superior to the effects of pounding in both meat and starch-rich tubers, a conclusion further supported by food preferences in fasted animals. Our results indicate significant contributions from cooking to both modern and ancestral human energy budgets. They also illuminate a weakness in current food labeling practices, which systematically overestimate the caloric potential of poorly processed foods.
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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22065771
These mice were fed very lean meat--lean enough that they lost weight whether the meat was cooked or raw. Whether the mice were newly introduced to raw vs. cooked meat, or were more experienced, they preferred the cooked over the raw. It would be interesting to have animals eat the raw for an extended period before introducing the cooked, and see what that did to preference. But I don't think it's that strange to suppose that it wouldn't take long for a preference for cooked foods to develop. Take a people who eat a whole, relatively unprocessed diet, such as the Kitivans. How long would it take for them to develop a preference for pizza and cheeseburgers? I would guess not very long. |