<![CDATA[The transition to a cooked diet was an important change in human evolution. Cooked foods are a universal component of the diets of all known human societies. Modern humans have developed a set of variations in the mouth and digestive system designed to consume cooked foods. Exactly how the cooked diet came about, however, is a complicated area to study. It has been very difficult to pinpoint exactly when the transition to a cooked diet was made. In order to find out when the change happened, the complicated cognitive mechanisms which surround the change to cooking need to be understood. Pioneering new work by a pair of American researchers has shed new light on exactly when these cognitive capacities developed, with remarkable results. Felix Warneken and Alexandra Rosati, of Harvard and Yale respectively, have suggested that the development of the abilities required for cooking may not be exclusive to humans. Earlier studies on the evolutionary origins of cooking have primarily focused on one critical aspect of cooking: controlling fire. Warneken and Rosati have, however, used a different approach. “People focus on the control of fire because that seems so salient, but even if you had a fire stick, several other insights are required before you can use it for cooking,” Rosati said. “Obviously, chimps can’t control fire, but we were trying to hypothesize about some of the other aspects of cooking, like the causal understanding that if you put this raw food on the fire it creates cooked food, or, at the extreme end of our study, the ability to plan.” Cooking requires a myriad of complicated cognitive abilities and thought processes, the pair argue. In order to cook food, humans must show causal reasoning, as cooking requires the transforming of raw food into cooked food with more energy. Future-oriented thought is also needed as individuals must save raw foods - instead of consuming immediately - in order to cook later. The pair's first tests were dedicated to demonstrating that chimpanzees preferred foods which had been 'cooked' - placed in a hot pan, without any other ingredients, for one minute - to raw foods. Subsequently, Warneken and Rosati wanted to explore whether or not the chimps properly grasped the change from raw to cooked food and whether they would attempt to 'cook' items. “We had done one season of testing, and we thought what we had was interesting, but then we wondered if they might be able to hold onto the reward and actively choose to put it in the cooking device,” Warneken said. “That’s really tough because usually when chimps have food, they eat it.” “I thought there was no way they were going to do this,” Rosati added. “There is quite a lot of research that says animals have problems with self-control when it comes to possessing food, but we were leaving the sanctuary in a few days so we decided to try it.” Remarkably, a number of chimpanzees in the study group, when given a raw piece of potato, chose to 'cook' it by placing it in the cooking device and receiving a cooked piece of food in return. Whilst the research did not reveal chimps sautéing their own potato, it is rather extraordinary. Warneken and Rosati have revealed that chimpanzees have the capacity to reason in a causal manner and have a future orientation towards food. Perhaps human's ability to cook, long thought to be unique, is not so exclusive. For more information: www.rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user: Massimo Peruffo]]>
Cooking May Not be Solely Human Trait
