What's Cooking?

I read a fascinating article on economist.com this morning about some research presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting on the evolutionary role of cookery.  Dr. Richard Wrangham from Harvard University argues that the act of cooking food is a human universal, which greatly helps in the digestive process:

Cooking alters food in three important ways. It breaks starch molecules into more digestible fragments. It “denatures” protein molecules, so that their amino-acid chains unfold and digestive enzymes can attack them more easily. And heat physically softens food. That makes it easier to digest, so even though the stuff is no more calorific, the body uses fewer calories dealing with it.

He argues that this ability to better digest food is directly related to the human evolution of a smaller gut, which was able to support a larger brain.  If this topic interests you, I also found an interview with Dr. Wrangham about how he came up with his theory at Scientific America.