B

Brain Evolution Resulting from Two key elements of human subsistence – cooking
Cooking and meat eating – have been proposed as a possi-
ble means of achieving this high-quality diet.
Mariya Voytyuk
School of Human Evolution and Social Change,
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA Encephalization and Trade-Off Theories

The human line has experienced a remarkable

Synonyms increase in brain size during the last couple of
million years: the first major expansion occurred
Encephalization; Thermal processing of food around 2 million years ago (MYA) with the second
one following around 800,000 years ago (YA),
when the brain increased to its modern level.
Definition A modern human’s average brain is 4.6 times larger
than expected for our body mass and takes up to
Cooking as a potential explanation for the evolu- 20 % of our body’s resting metabolic rate (RMR) in
tion of the disproportionately large human brain. comparison to only 9 % for other primates (RMR is
conceptually related to the basal metabolic rate,
though BMR is more accurately measured). This
Introduction substantial energetic cost to the body, however, is
not accompanied by a corresponding increase in
The disproportionately big human brain is a BMR to supply the extra energy, as a mature
conundrum – it is larger than would be expected human’s BMR is quite typical of primates. How,
for a primate of our size, and it is a very energet- then, do humans feed the expanded energy needs of
ically expensive organ. Since human basal meta- the large brain when the basal metabolic rate
bolic rate (BMR) is not elevated to match such a remains fixed?
big brain, the extra energy needed to sustain it Various theories have been proposed to explain
suggests a dietary explanation. Feeding the large how the expansion of such a costly brain occurred
brain would likely require a shift to a high-quality in the human lineage. Aiello and Wheeler’s
diet: one comprised of energy-rich, easily digest- expensive-tissue hypothesis (Aiello and Wheeler
ible foods. This hypothesis is supported by a 1995) suggests that a size reduction in the gastroin-
number of anatomical features: smaller teeth, testinal tract (only 60 % of what is expected for
jaws, stomachs, and a shorter large intestine. a primate our size) energetically balances increases
# Springer International Publishing AG 2017
T.K. Shackelford, V.A. Weekes-Shackelford (eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2951-2
2 Brain Evolution Resulting from Cooking

in brain size. The metabolically expensive tissue of twentieth century. Because fire was considered
the brain is thus offset by a smaller gut – another to be first controlled by Homo sapiens, the origins
metabolically costly organ. Such decreased gastro- of cooking were placed only recently- less than
intestinal tract points to diet as a major determinant, 200,000 YA. The shift to a high-quality diet was
with less bulk and higher digestibility of energy- thus popularly attributed to eating more animal
packed foods (e.g., low-fiber plants, fruits, meats) foods. Later archeological evidence gave rise to
requiring relatively smaller guts. In humans, the other approaches, placing cooking as early as 1.8
colon is only 20 % of the total volume of the MYA (around the emergence of H. erectus) and
digestive tract, compared to 50 % in apes. Since increasing academic interest in its role in human
big colons permit fermentation of fibrous evolution. Wrangham’s book, Catching Fire:
low-quality plant foods, humans are relatively How Cooking Made Us Human (2009), supports
poor at utilizing uncooked plant fiber. Aiello the earlier adoption of cooking (1.8 MYA) with
and Wheeler propose that cooking – a way to plenty of time to allow for a larger brain.
externalize part of the digestive process – might Cooking is both a unique and universal human
have been an important factor in attaining such a feature: every human culture cooks, while no
high-quality diet. The authors’ hypothesis of the other species does. The hypothesis that Homo
gut-brain trade-off, however, is challenged by erectus already cooked food by 1.8 MYA is
Navarrete et al. (2011), who failed to find the mainly supported by the fact that specific features
negative correlation between relative brain size of H. erectus (small mouth, small blunt molars,
and digestive tract for 100 mammal species. and smaller gut) are difficult to explain unless a
Another theory has been proposed by Fonseca- diet of soft easily digested foods was available
Azevedo and Herculano-Houzel (2012), who sug- year-round. In terms of archeological record,
gest a trade-off between brain size and body size, there is sparse evidence of fire use as far back as
with larger primates having smaller brains due to 1 MYA, but it is reasonable to accept its use
caloric restraints that cannot fuel both the brain specifically for cooking after about 800,000 YA.
and body to be large. These caloric restraints are a With these timelines we can expect cooking to
result of the limited number of hours available for produce genetic change, considering that other
feeding per day and the low caloric yield of raw examples of dietary modifications causing genetic
foods. Their calculations show that, with a raw adaptations occurred in much less time – such as
food diet similar to that of extant nonhuman pri- with dairying and lactase enzyme persistence into
mates (e.g., great apes), the Homo species would adulthood. Indeed, there appears to be genetic
have to feed for more than 9 h a day to afford their evidence for our adaptation to cooked foods
total body mass and brain size (Cornélio (Carmody et al. 2016).
et al. (2016) challenges these calculations, con-
cluding that only 5–6 h of daily foraging would
have provided enough energy to sustain a large Cooked Starches, Large Brain
brain). With this theory of the brain versus body
growth trade-off, Fonseca-Azevedo and Cooking can increase energy gained from food by
Herculano-Houzel also point to a high-quality improving nutrient digestibility, reducing body’s
diet as early humans’ strategy to circumvent the costs of digestion, and decreasing the energy
caloric restraint, with cooking specifically as a spent on immune defenses (by eliminating
way to provide more calories in less feeding time. foodborne pathogens). For humans, the most con-
sistent evidence for cooking’s ability to increase
net energy gain of food is for starchy vegetables,
Cooking: The Human Universal though there is evidence for meat and nuts as well
(“▶ Increased Energy/Reduced Digestion”).
The significance of cooking for our biological Starchy foods in particular could have been
evolution was not widely discussed until the important in the evolution of a large brain and
Brain Evolution Resulting from Cooking 3

particularly in cooked form. The brain tissue is maintaining body weight (Carmody and
characterized by high glucose demands (the Wrangham 2009; Koebnick et al. 1999). In
human brain uses up to 60 % of the body’s glucose Koebnick et al. (1999), this energy deficiency
in a resting state), and a consistent diet of cooked resulted in 50 % of the female respondents
starchy plants – the richest form of dietary experiencing amenorrhea or the absence of men-
glucose – can meet such demands quite well. struation. These outcomes are surprising, consid-
Cooking starches gelatinizes them, allowing the ering that modern raw foodists enjoy access to a
digestive enzyme in our saliva (salivary amylase rich variety of high-energy foods free of season-
or AMY1) to begin digesting it. Humans are in fact ality constraints. In addition, they process their
unusual in the high number of AMY1 genes (six diets quite extensively through dehydration,
copies, in comparison to only two in other pri- blending, sprouting, and pickling, which can
mates), which makes starch digestion more effi- increase the food’s caloric value. Adding cold
cient. Hardy et al. (2015) propose that the rapid smoked meats to the raw plant diet did not
increase in brain size from the Middle Pleistocene improve the odds of becoming underweight, so
(about 800,000 YA) was energetically affordable the lack of meat does not appear to hinder repro-
due to the coevolution of cooking and increases in ductive function or one’s energy status. The
expression of AMY1, as raw starches are poorly energy deficiency seen with long-term modern
digested by this enzyme. While nonthermal raw foodists, even with the addition of meat,
methods of food processing, like grinding and suggests that the diet to which humans are adapted
blending, can also improve starch digestibility, evolutionarily has to include cooked foods.
they cannot achieve the same effectiveness as gela-
tinization through heat.
Coevolution of cooking and salivary amylase Nonthermal Processing: An Alternative
AMY1 would have resulted in higher availability Hypothesis
of glucose necessary for the enlarging brain. This
is important, because even when the brain uses Cornelio and colleagues (2016) challenge the
ketones (by-products of high levels of fat oxida- hypothesis that cooking is a prerequisite to our
tion) during long periods of fasting, its normal brain expansion: they propose that it is the use of
functioning still absolutely requires 30–50 g of tools that helped early hominins increase their
dietary glycemic carbohydrate per day. One daily energetic intake, as well as the inclusion of
would have to generate large stores of glycogen new food sources – meat and seeds. The author’s
during periods of sustained fasting, requiring a work with mice indicated no weight gain on a
diet that provides a caloric surplus consistently. cooked meat diet, suggesting that cooking was
The energy expenditure necessary to obtain not necessary for increasing caloric intake of
starchy tubers and roots would have been far foods. Not including cooked starches limits the
lower than that to obtain animal foods for a reli- study’s conclusions, however, since cooking
able food source (Carmody et al. 2011). would be applied to both meat and plants.
Carmody et al. (2011) include both foods in their
cooked versus raw design and find that mice on
A Case for Cooking: The Modern Raw cooked meat and plants retain weight, while mice
Foodist on the raw versions lose it, contrasting Cornelio
and colleagues’ results. Carmody et al. (2011) also
Some unexpected evidence for the importance of challenge the tool use hypothesis by testing the
cooking comes from studies with raw food com- effect of both cooking and non-thermal food
munities. “Raw foodists” are groups living in processing methods, such as pounding. They
industrialized societies that avoid cooked foods demonstrate that with starches, mice lose weight
for perceived health benefits. Studies consistently on the raw diet whether the starchy food is whole
show insufficient energy on such diets for or pounded, yet retain weight on the cooked
4 Brain Evolution Resulting from Cooking

version. With meat, mice lose weight from all References

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hypothesis: The brain and the digestive system in
gain with thermal processing. Therefore, pro-
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According to the archeological record available so
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for the second main period of hominin brain Genetic evidence of human adaptation to a cooked diet.
Genome Biology and Evolution, 8(4), 1091–1103.
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Fonseca-Azevedo, K., & Herculano-Houzel, S. (2012).
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foods and evolving the extra copies of salivary size and number of brain neurons in human evolution.
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Cross-References

▶ Increased Energy/Reduced Digestion