Fire Cooking And Bigger Brains

Cooking food allowed the human brain to develop and become the most advanced among all species because it released more nutrients and met the brain’s high metabolic demands. When early humans began using fire to cook meat and plants, they unlocked calories more efficiently and spent less energy on digestion. That shift freed time and energy that could support larger brains with many more neurons. By contrast, gorillas, which have about one-third of our neurons, still spend up to 80 percent of their day chewing raw, fibrous food just to meet their basic energy needs.

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