The Cooking Ape Prompt #1 Response

    Wrangham's argument, that humans controlling fire and cooking with it has shaped us into the humans we are now, is illustrated in the excerpts of "The Cooking Ape." Cooking makes food more digestible which gives humans more readily available calories. This means more energy for activity and bigger bodies and brains. Bodies of females increase in weight 60% as well as brain size increasing 60%. Wrangham believes humans controlled fire about 1.9 million years ago and started to cook soon after. The first people to cook were not completely human. Cooking in the beginning was very simple and earth ovens came quite a while after. Cooking "changes a species from feeding as it picks the food to forcing a species to keep its food for some time." (Wrangham 78) This causes the problem of one person trying to hold on to and protect their food from others trying to steal it. This is solved through "sexual division of labor." (Wrangham 79) Women make sure there is cooked food for the family while the man hunts for food but does not have to bring food back. Males protect the food of a female and she feeds him. Children can be dependent on their mothers longer because the mothers have time to collect and cook food for the family. "Humans have a very low rate of mortality." (Wrangham 80) They have more energy that can be used to defend the body and live longer. All of these things contribute to who we are today.