The genetic and physiological effects of at least half a million years of cooking have been enormous. Compared with our primate cousins, we have a gut less than half the size and far smaller teeth, and we spend far fewer calories chewing and digesting. The gains in nutritional efficiency, Richard Wrangham claims, largely account for the fact that our brains are three times the size one would expect, judging by other mammals.6 In the archaeological record the surge in brain size coincides with hearths and the remains of meals. Morphological changes of this magnitude have been known to occur in
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