Does Food Make Us Human?

             In the beginning, the diet of our ancestors was predicated on fruits and vegetables and the energy derived from these food sources. This all changed when meat became an option of the menu. This simple change transformed not only the hunting styles of our predecessors, but also the environments that they occupied. This transition seems miniscule when compared to the application of fire to meals. With the introduction of fire as a way of preparing foods, our ancestors were able to increase development and enhance their evolution. In today’s society, fire still plays a crucial role in food preparation, but it’s not emphasized. What seems to be important however, is how we make food choices in relation to others. In this way, we are using food to develop social mechanisms that will allow us, as a species, to evolve.

In the film Did Cooking Make us Human?, an experiment was conducted in which a “giant stomach” was created with the ability to simulate the digestive processes that occur during food consumption. The purpose of this experiment was to observe how the stomach responds to both raw and cooked foods. The experiment demonstrated that the stomach exhibits slower rates of digestion with raw foods than with cooked foods. I found this interesting because it explained how obtaining new food sources wasn’t enough for our ancestors to fully evolve. Cooking was extremely essential, and continues to be, essential to our development because it is through cooking that our bodies are able to extract all the nutrients from food and give our bodies a large amount of energy.

Cooking allowed our ancestors to break down the food they consumed more easily, and supply their bodies with energy that increased their chances of survival and reproduction. The film also asserted that, because eating cooked foods decreases the digestive process, our ancestors were able to save energy and use it to power the production of larger brains. Personally, whenever I’m eating cooked foods, I’m not taking the time to relate dinner to science. I eat cooked meals on a daily basis and have done so since I was a small boy. That is the environment I grew up in and have become accustomed to. Eating cooked foods benefits the body more than raw foods, and also, in my opinion, they taste better.

With all practicalities aside, the question still remains. What exactly is the human component associated with food? The answer lies in the modernization of the ever changing food industry.

According to Jack Goody, in his article “Cooking Cuisine, and Class: A Study In Comparative Sociology”, making food available to the public was a primary concern for industries during the period leading into the 1900s. This initiative was complemented with a heavy emphasis on marketing (163). This means that advances in machinery and technology were made in efforts to increase the production of foods and in the distribution of these food items to willing consumers. These advances are still being made in today’s food industry. Food products are present in an abundance within the community. These foods are constantly advertised whether on enormous signs in front of buildings or on television sets within personal homes.

The abundance and proximity of stores or restaurants that sell these foods makes them easily obtainable. In Gisele Yasmeen’s article “Not ‘From Scratch’: Thai food systems and public eating”, she discusses how food industrialization has affected Thai patterns of food consumption. She states that, “As society industrializes and urbanizes, it becomes uprooted from its agricultural way of life, and food becomes a commodity purchased from the market” (344). Yasmeen observes that more and more people living within these societies are willing to eat “fast foods” in a public setting instead of taking the time to prepare meals themselves at home.

 

This infers that the food industry has caused a shift in tradition. The importance in food preparation has become linked with an equal importance in the foods we choose to eat and the settings in which we consume them in relation to others in our immediate surroundings. This idea is seen in the social systems established in Bangkok. Bangkok has constructed a type of societal hierarchy separated into two divisions based on the mannerisms of food consumption. The upper class citizens make up the first division and are able to consume homemade meals prepared by others in the comfort and privacy of their own homes. Whereas destitute, working citizens make up the second division and either, prepare, sell, or deliver the foods and are more likely to eat in public settings (Yasmeen 345). People are given an identity within society based on their relation to food.

The evolutionary success of our predecessors was predicated on the invention of cooking. However, today’s society illustrates a heavier interest in the industrialization of foods. Perhaps this suggests that the identities of individuals and their roles within the social systems created by food industries is the key to further evolution.

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"Who We Are." Photograph. n.d. Google. Restaurant. 16 Jan. 2013.