Did Cooked Food Create Bigger Brains?
As for Wrangham’s claims that cooked food consumption led to bigger human brain-size, they are easily debunked.[2] His claims are that Homo Habilis gained brain-size due to including more (raw) meat in the diet, but that Homo Erectus gained extra average brain-size due to eating cooked-foods. Given that the increase in average brain-size was roughly similiar for both species (~300cc for each, or roughly 500 to 800cc for Homo Habilis, 900-1200cc for Homo Erectus), it’s far more likely that the increase in either pre-human brain-size was due to one sole, common reason, namely eating meat, especially since Homo Erectus ate a diet much higher in meat than Homo Habilis, who, in turn, ate more meat than previous ancestors. Also, H. Erectus was a larger animal than its predecessor, and thus, their relative brain sizes are actually quite similar [10] and less noteworthy than the brain size without consideration to overall body size. So, Wrangham doesn’t really have any basis for his ‘cooked fo
