Why Do We Cook?

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Ever wonder why we cook our food? We do it because it tastes good, of course, and because our customs and traditions are built around it. But we also cook our food for some basic biological reasons, because of evolution. Some scientists think that figuring out how to cook actually MADE us human!

If conversation gets a little dry around your holiday table, now you'll have some awesome science to share with everyone!

Richard Wrangham - "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human" http://amzn.to/1cg5flN

"The Raw and the Stolen" (PDF) - Richard Wrangham et al. http://bit.ly/JTLYfe
(that one has some of the counterarguments, too)
Greg Laden's summary: http://bit.ly/1dx46oc

Cooked Foods Needed for Early Human Brain: http://bit.ly/1l8bqJE

Man Entered the Kitchen 1.9 Million Years Ago: http://bit.ly/1c1vcB5

What made us human: http://bit.ly/19lp4cU and http://www.epjournal.net/wp-content/u...

The story might not be quite so simple, though: http://blogs.plos.org/neuroanthropolo...

Joe Hanson - Host
Joe Nicolosi - Director
Amanda Fox - Producer, Spotzen IncKatie Graham - Director of Photography
John Knudsen - Gaffer
Isaac Hammons - Audio Recordist
Stephen Bohls, Editor, Kino-Eye POST
Christopher Chiles, Motion Graphics
Kate Eads - Production Manager
Intro music - Victor Herbert Orchestra, "Chinese Dance of the Mirillitons from the Nutcracker 1913"
Body music - Podington Bear's "AlgoRhythmNatural"
Special thanks to Thinkery Austin

Produced for PBS Digital Studios
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