Research
Micronutrients & recovery
The consumption of cooked and processed foods enhances nutrient bioavailability (e.g., glucose, DHA, antioxidants) and reduces foraging time, which was a prerequisite for the metabolic cost of maintaining a large human brain.
Cooking is not just a convenience but a biological necessity for human brain function. It unlocks nutrients like DHA and antioxidants that are harder to get from raw food. However, modern ultra-processed foods are different from home-cooked food and contribute to obesity.
ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
The preparation and cooking of food enabled partial externalization of digestion, significantly increasing the number of calories consumed and the quality of nutrients, leading to the growth and expansion of the human brain, as well as reducing foraging and digestion time.
Why this rating
Based on evolutionary biology reviews and cited studies on nutrient bioavailability.
Source
Is obesity the next step in evolution through brain changes?
Wifredo Ricart et al. · Neuroscience Applied · 2023
DOI 10.1016/j.nsa.2023.103927
narrative_reviewCited 5×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Cultural evolution, specifically the adoption of cooking and processed foods, provided the necessary energy surplus to drive human brain expansion and physiological reconditioning, establishing an evolutionary trajectory that predisposes modern humans to obesity in obesogenic environments.Moderate
- Modern obesogenic environments (sedentary lifestyle, high-calorie processed food) exploit evolutionary adaptations (brain expansion, efficient fat storage) leading to a 'normalization' of obesity phenotypes and genotypes.Limited
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