why do we cook food

[Eurox]

Is it not natural to cook food as we are the only animals that do, I know we need to cook raw food otherwise we can get ill but how come we havn't inherited the same digestive tract as others?

[boogieboogie]

We are the only animals that cook... hehe just the other day my cat made thai green curry with naan bread, he struggled with the corkscrew when opening the bottle of wine (those damn big paws) so I opened it.

We don't need to cook food and many people don't.. http://www.rawforlife.co.uk/whygoraw.html

[beso]

Cooked food is more digestable. The starches in vegetables break down into sugars. Compare the sweetness of raw pototo with cooked. Meats soften with heating.

Cooking technology has been part of our environment for a very long time. Our digestive system would have adapted to cooked food, especially the microbial content of the digestinve system.

Different intestinal flora actually make a big difference to digestion. Some people are prone to getting fat because their symbiotic partners help make their digestive systems particularly efficient.

Cooking to kill pathinogenic bacteria protects these advantages from damage.

[heathfield]

By the way,there's a type of hawk in Australia that's evolved to know that after a bush fire there will be lots of cooked creatures lying around, and that these make for an easy meal. On seeing smoke in the distance, these hawks will head for it.

[sandman666]

so is there any peoples on the planet that can still eat raw meat and other foods without becoming ill because of bacteria?

[KageTora]

The Japanese are famous for eating raw fish. People often call it 'sushi', but this is incorrect, as it is actually called 'sashimi'. Sushi is something else. In addition to raw fish, they also eat raw beef, raw horse, and even raw dolphin and whale meat. Liver, when raw, tastes completely different from what it is like when cooked, and has a totally different texture. Raw chicken is also very good.