"Catching Fire" Update

So, I'm probably a third of the way through Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. It's a very insightful and well-written book. Some things I noticed or that stuck out to me:

1. The expensive tissue theory is really cool. Basically, Wrangham is saying that because of cooked food, which contains way more energy than raw food, our digestive systems were able to decrease in size, taking less energy. This then left energy for our brains, which then grew in size, leading to higher levels of intelligence and larger brains. I didn't know this, but apparently our brains consume 20% of all the food we eat--significantly more than any other animal. This probably explains why we have created amazing things like cars, planes and twinkies.
   
2. Wrangham uses a lot of studies, which is helpful. It also makes the book more of a "smart read" instead of a relaxing read. Probably my favorite study that he cites is one on raw food diets. He pretty much says that raw food diets are BS and there is no way humans could ever survive on such a diet. I want to say that more than 50% of the woman in the study completely stopped having their periods (you should read the book instead of quoting me on that).
   
3. Also, he mentions something about instinctual raw foodists. I know--just when you thought raw foodists were already crazy, here come even crazier ones. Basically, they "let" their stomachs decide what they will eat. They will smell all of the fruit in a bowl, for instance, and then instinctually pick what to eat.
   

Those are just a few thoughts. I still have a while to go before I finish the book. I'm actually pretty excited, though, because he's getting ready to talk about the gender roles that evolved from cooking. We'll see what amazing and brilliant things he has to say!

Note: I may or may not have a slight crush on this man.

Other note: I just read my post on the Farmer's Market. Boy was it sappy and generic. I guess that's what happens when you've been surrounded by fresh, amazing produce and food for an hour!

And just one final note: We went to CJ's last night. They have the absolute best chicken wings in all of this grand nation. I ate way too many and felt the grease monster to its full effect this morning. Totally worth it.