The leaf bug

  In an attempt to make this as factual as possible, I'm re-reading many of the books that I'd used to fill my head a while ago. Apparently this is called research and it's a good way to make sure I'm not spouting any more than the usual level of bollocks. It's super interesting (for me at least) because I'm discovering all sorts of things, (possibly for the second time, but you know what my memory is like), such as the first major evolutionary shift.

  About sixty million years ago, some of our distant ancestors used the ends of their front limbs to pick up things that seemed edible and transfer them to their mouths. This set them apart from the rest of the creatures that would simply stick their muzzles in and start chewing. By feeding themselves this way, they had started to change their relationship with food and set themselves on a path of enjoyment and choice.

An ancient snack. Possibly.

  However, fast forward nearly sixty million years, give or take a few tens of thousands, and there was another great evolutionary leap. One that I think is the most significant in our development; cooking. Locked up in the food we eat are all sorts of nutrients. We need to digest the food to get the benefits but the process of digestion is quite laborious, on top of which, raw food just doesn't have levels of benefits as the cooked variety.

  Cooking is a way of pre-digesting food as well as releasing a lot more of the nourishment. As a result, when our ancestors started cooking food, they spent a lot less time sitting around chewing. They also could eat a much more diverse range of foods as they could now unlock the benefits. Like grass seed.

​​​​​​​  The idea of eating grass seed may not sound that appealing, whether raw or cooked but it's something most of us do. In fact, I'm willing to bet you've had grass seed in one form or another today. Did you have a bowl of porridge or corn flakes for breakfast? Maybe you had a slice of toast? It could be you had a bowl of pasta, or some rice for lunch and you might even be munching on some tortilla chips while you read this. All of those are made from grass seeds and there are plenty more examples. If we hadn't started cooking...

Actually, if we hadn't started cooking a lot of things would be different but I'll tell you more about that tomorrow.

Kirk out

RevoltingFood.com