Harvard University researchers have released the results of a very thorough study which measured the availability of energy from eating meat or sweet potato that is still raw or has been cooked.
The observations are fascinating – in summary – more net energy is obtained from eating cooked meat than raw. No wonder my hairdresser is as thin as a stick, he only ever eats raw food these days. My conclusion is that if people were eating only raw tucker from Macca’s and Pizza Hut, our obesity epidemic would be reigned in at least slightly, because they’d be obtaining less net energy from the food being consumed (as more energy would be required for digestion, and some would remain undigested). (Although they’d have to steady up on the fizzy drinks, as well.) Read about the study on the Beef Central website.
The Harvard University website has other interesting information in the same field, such as an article on Richard Wrangham’s book regarding the effect of the invention of cooking on the evolution of the human race, called ‘Catching Fire – How cooking made us human’. Richard Wrangham believes that human beings started cooking food much earlier than several hundred thousand years ago, as is most commonly thought, due to archaeological evidence. He believes the change in human anatomy 1.9 million years ago is best explained by the advent of food cooking. This brought about physical changes, including a smaller gut and teeth, other changes, such as the ability to wean children earlier, and social changes, as much less time was required to gather enough food to provide sufficient energy, and less time needed to be spent actually eating. (Richard Wrangham says that if we spent as much time chewing as great apes, we’d spend 5-6 hours/day chewing.)