> [!infobox]
<s class="aside-in"><em>mentioned in 1 topic, 2 evergreens, 1 source</em></s>
#### [[Cooking allowed prehistoric humans to spend less energy on digesting]]
part of:: [[Foraging allowed for a diverse diet]]
In order to digest unprocessed plant and animal matter, you need to have a long and powerful intestinal tract and spend lots of energy chewing. This is a feature of many species from cows to chimpanzee's, but not of the chimpanzee's close relatives, humans.
By contrast, we spend a much shorter time chewing and digesting and thus can put our energy into other things. This adaptation likely allowed for larger brains
may be linked to cooking.
Cooking breaks down a lot of the proteins that stomachs have to in other animals.
Similarly:: [[Cracking bones and eating the marrow may have been human's first niche]].
Together, these traits gave us the energy and the time to pursue [[social behavior]] and eventually rule the planet:
[[Greater cooperation and communication has lead to the success of humans as a species]].
### <hr class="footnote"/>
**Status**:: #EVER/SAPLING
*edited 7:35 AM - July 08, 2022*
**Topics**:: [[human evolution]], [[prehistory]], [[cooking]]
#### References
![[Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari#citation]]
> ![[10_Sources/books - Sapiens#294248523q]]